


My heart froze in early winter

by zimriya



Series: The last flame of my life (a Homin ABO AU) [2]
Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Canon Compliant, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Slow Burn, Soulmates, alpha changmin, omega yunho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-01-25 15:06:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18576952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimriya/pseuds/zimriya
Summary: Changmin doesn’t believe in soulmates.Changmin’s POV ofMy heart has changed after meeting you.





	1. chill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Me, in passing:** Man I kind of just want to write Changmin’s POV of Baby.  
>  **Hexmen, visibly filled with glee, but trying to remain composed:** … I SEE AND. AND WHY DO YOU WANT TO DO THAT.  
>  **Me:** idk I think it could be fun.  
>  **Hexmen:** I ALSO THINK IT WOULD BE FUN.  
>  **Me:** idk…  
>  **Hexmen, having a breakdown:** WELL. I SUPPORT YOU. WHATEVER YOU DECIDE TO DO.Everyone say thank you to her for this happening.
> 
> Title from ‘November With Love’ because… I am a sap. Betaed by Hexmen and Kinah. Universe information can be found in the [primer](https://zimriya.tumblr.com/aboau).

####  01\. Chill 

* * *

Changmin doesn’t believe in soulmates.

That sounds more dramatic than it really is.

Changmin is fifteen, and what fifteen-year-old believes in soulmates, honestly, especially when there are far more pressing issues at hand? What fifteen-year-old has time for pheromones and meant-to-bes and the rest of your life with one person, when puberty is months from rearing its ugly head? What fifteen-year-old has time for anything when the fate of the world rests, it seems, on the fate of one’s genitals? To knot or not to knot; to rut or not to rut; to go into _heat_ or not to go into heat, etc., etc., ad nauseum, until every time Changmin closes his eyes he’s reliving his parent’s sexual education lectures and also the shitty porn his classmates email around like complete _idiots_.

So Changmin doesn’t believe in soulmates.

Changmin mostly would like to survive junior high.

Changmin doesn’t even care what he ends up as. His mother is an alpha and his father is an omega and, honestly, he’d be okay with being a beta, if that would stop his grandparents from frowning and making disappointed noises every time they come to visit.

Changmin just wants to survive _period_ , and the first step to doing that is fading into the background, pretending that the shitty porn his classmates keep emailing around is the extent of his knowledge of the human body, and if the mood so strikes him, playing badminton outside with his friends.

Which is what he’s doing, the moment his life changes forever.

Namely, playing badminton while singing, which.

Changmin hadn’t thought he was very good at singing, before that. Changmin mostly thought his voice was unfortunately high and had spent a tragic amount of his mandated computer time looking up whether or not one had to end up an alpha to end up with a deep voice. (And then, afterwards, feeling like a complete idiot, since his father’s not an alpha and his father’s voice is plenty deep, especially when telling Changmin off for the aforementioned porn emails.)

The woman who spots him outside the school gates batting terribly at a shuttlecock disagrees with that assessment, clearly, because she introduces herself as Im Sooyeon, a representative from SM, and Changmin stares up at her and her business card blankly for all of five seconds, before the reality of the situation sets in.

“I’m sorry?” he manages, because his wits haven’t entirely escaped him--especially given the first words Changmin ever learned were jondaenmal-level polite.

“Im Sooyoen,” Im Sooyeon says, business card unwavering. “From SM Entertainment.”

Changmin takes the business card, mostly to get his friends to stop poking him rather obviously with their badminton rackets. “I see,” he says.

“I recruit for SM Entertainment,” Im Sooyeon continues. She hasn’t spared Changmin’s friends a single glance this entire conversation, and Changmin would be impressed, if part of him wasn’t terrified. “You’re a good singer.”

“Thank you,” Changmin manages, voice more a squeak than anything else.

“You should audition,” says Im Sooyeon. “I think you’d do well.”

Changmin’s fingers spasm around the business card. “Thank you for thinking that,” he says, voice still unfortunately high.

“Yah, Shim Changmin,” his friends hiss. “Fucking bow.”

It’s the cursing more than the badminton racket to the back that does it, but Changmin’s ears are on fire when he dips ninety degrees and swallows, heart racing. “Thank you for thinking of me, Sooyeon-ssi,” he says, and stays low for longer than he thinks is appropriate.

When he stands, she’s gone, walked all the away across the street onto the other sidewalk, her stiletto heels clacking on the pavement and the swish of her skirt audible to Changmin even as the distance between them grows and grows.

“Wow,” one of his friends says finally, the eldest, who everyone grudgingly calls ‘Hyung,’ since they’re all fifteen and things like that are finally starting to matter.

Changmin can’t begrudge him. When girls want to call you ‘oppa,’ suddenly, he supposes all bets are all off.

“That lady was an alpha,” his friend continues, with a nod in Im Sooyeon’s direction like they’d all somehow missed that. “I’ve never met a woman alpha before.”

Changmin raises a brow.

“Hyung,” his other friend hisses, coloring on the kid’s behalf. “Changmin’s mom--”

“It’s bullshit, anyway,” Changmin says pointedly, not even looking around before he drops the business card on the ground. It makes his hands itch. He could get in trouble for littering, or for making a fuss. “I’m a terrible singer.”

His friends look between him and the business card for two long moments, then they seem to gather themselves.

“Right,” the oldest says, grabbing the shuttlecock from where they’ve lost it and bouncing it in the air. “Everyone knows they only scout pretty boys off the street, anyway.”

Changmin snorts. “And I’m not pretty,” he says, settling into a crouch so that he can receive the volley.

“Right,” his friend says. He thwacks the shuttlecock up high. “You’re practically an ogre.”

“You look like a q-tip,” his other friend puts in brightly, and swipes the shuttlecock out of the air before Changmin can even draw the breath to protest.

“Thanks, guys,” he says, but laughs, Im Sooyeon and her proposition forgotten.

Until, of course, his mother gets a call from a representative from SM--fucking friends, Changmin thinks darkly, remembering they’d called him by his full name--and Changmin gets dragged to an audition simply for the chance to see Kwon Boa, the nation’s soon-to-be queen.

“She’s an alpha,” his mother says, heels clacking on the linoleum as she power-walks Changmin through the media company’s halls. “Not officially, of course; she’s seventeen, yes? 1986?” She glances back like she’s expecting Changmin to know, and Changmin blushes, grabs embarrassedly at her skirt and feels all of nine.

“ _Mom_ ,” he hisses, glancing this way and that way like this is going to make her stop. Like his mother will ever be anything other than their family’s alpha, even though she can’t give Changmin her name; even though she’ll always be something for the traditionalists to disapprove of. “Don’t talk about Boa-sunbae like that!”

There’s a beat, probably so Changmin can realize he’s slipped up and called the girl ‘sunbae’ like they’re going to be colleagues-- _peers_ , even--and then Changmin’s mother smiles.

“Changmin-ah,” she says, and it’s the tone that Changmin hates most of all.

Not patronizing, because his mother would never be patronizing, but fond. Fond like she gets when it’s April, when she’s stuffing Changmin and his sisters into oversized, matching pajamas sets and plopping them in front of the television for family movie nights.

It makes Changmin’s skin flush and his palms sweat and reminds him of how his teachers always looked, after that first school conference. Like Changmin was going to turn out weird, just because his mother happened to have a dick.

Or.

Shit.

Changmin’s gone and thought about his mother’s _knot_ in the middle of _SM Entertainment_. Clearly he’s not equipped to live in the real world, let alone become a world famous idol in that real world.

“Mom,” he says again, because what else can he do. “Do we have to?”

His mother looks sharply at him this time, and Changmin winces before she can say anything.

“I mean do _I_ have to--”

“Shim Changmin.” Changmin’s mother finds the room they’re supposed to be meeting the recruiters from SM in--Im Sooyeon, probably foremost of all--and drags him to an abrupt stop. “Do not slouch.”

Changmin straightens with fifteen years of practice, shoulders going back and spine going stiff and tall.

“No you do not ‘have to.’” His mother makes air quotes and looks so much like Changmin’s grandmother that Changmin’s skin crawls. “But Im-ssi saw something in you,” his mother continues. “I see something in you.”

Changmin doesn’t know if he wants to hit her or hug her. “Mom.”

“Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to at least try?”

She lifts a hand to knock on the door.

Changmin fists his hands at his sides. “Fine,” he says. “I mean yes,” he says. He knocks on the door before his mother can.

“Yes, who is it?” comes Im Sooyeon’s voice, pleasant and authoritarian as Changmin had remembered, had expected.

His mother’s nostrils flare ever so slightly.

Changmin exhales. “Shim Changmin,” he says.

The door opens.

“You said I should come, when you called?” It’s a question.

Changmin is going to have to work on that, if he gets it.

He gets it.

He army claps, he really can’t dance to save his life, but he gets it.

“Come back Saturday,” Sooyeon-ssi says… Sooyeon-noona says. “We’ll introduce you to the other trainees. You’re 1988, yes?”

Changmin nods, more than a little shocked.

“I’m sure you’ll fit right in,” Sooyoen-noona says, and smiles.

Changmin somehow smiles back.

“See,” his mother says on the train home.

Changmin glances at her out of the corner of his eye, suddenly so nervous he can’t speak.

His mother reaches down, takes him by the hand even though he’s tall enough to reach the hand-holds himself, and gives it a squeeze. “You’re going to be amazing, Baby,” she says quietly.

Changmin squeezes back and tries to commit those words into his very soul.

\--

The other SM trainees are, in a word, impressive. Changmin shows up to SM Entertainment on a Saturday, nervous and flighty and not really sure how he went from home to Apgujeong in what feels like only seconds but had to have been at least thirty minutes on the train.

He gets guided around by a man who announces himself as the dance instructor, brought into a room with other boys and girls that look like they could be his age, wearing an assortment of neons and work-out clothes.

Changmin inhales, startled, roof of his mouth throbbing with all the new scents-- _new people_ \--and stuck, oddly, on a more rambunctious grouping of boys. They have to be older--all of them have the same H.O.T. famous hair--and they’re laughing, draping arms overtop each other and exchanging what can only be familiar words.

His guide clears his throat.

He’s an alpha; that was the first thing Changmin noticed, when they met. That, and the fact that his aftershave made Changmin’s eyes water, even though there was something else underneath it, something almost sweet, that made Changmin nervous for another reason all together. Changmin’s too young for formal Jacobson’s testing; SM will no doubt take care of that later, once he and his peers have all presented, but Changmin grew up in an alpha-omega household with alpha-omega parents who stressed the importance of keeping one’s mouth closed in the company of strangers and the significance of the organ on the roof of his mouth. He’s never been particularly affected in large crowds, but something about the combination of nerves, anticipation, and adrenaline is kicking all of Changmin’s senses into gear.

He’s lucky he hasn’t thrown up all over everybody, let alone invaded their privacy by inhaling their pheromones.

“Everyone,” the dance instructor-- _Changmin’s_ new dance instructor-turned-guide says.

The other trainees all stand to attention, minus the still play-fighting group of older, H.O.T.-trainee boys.

“--I haven’t seen Youngwoonie’s arms. They’ve somehow been invisible all this time,” the tallest of the three says, with the kind of barbed wit Changmin aspires too, before their teacher clears his throat.

The boy he’s talking to sticks his tongue out, stumbling a little in his hold on his other friend. He’s taller, with the same dark, straight parted hair, and pink, flushed cheeks. It might be a rash. Changmin doesn’t want to stare too obviously; can’t risk further checking it out. Him out.

Checking the boy out.

Changmin swallows.

The boy smiles when he sees Changmin looking, but it’s not a real smile. It’s the sort of smile Changmin sometimes finds himself giving babies; a reflex; biological instinct; meant only to soothe.

Great.

Changmin’s not been here for more than fifteen minutes, and already his seniors are smiling at him like they might at a small child.

“Introduce yourself,” their teacher tells Changmin, arms crossed.

Changmin startles, brought out of his thoughts abruptly, but goes down into his ninety degree bow anyway. He says his name somehow, and his age.

Their teacher claps, sounds pleased, before moving on too quickly for Changmin to do more than stare after him, standing so quickly all the blood rushes to his head.

“Yunho-yah,” the man says, gesturing at the boy with the rash on his face, the boy who’d smiled.

“Right.” His voice is gruffer than Changmin was expecting, and his eyes roll off of Changmin like oil over water.

Their instructor turns on the stereo.

Changmin finds himself towards the back, more than a little lost. He doesn’t know how to dance, period, but now he’s expected to know not only know how to dance, but how to remember choreography combinations and somehow reproduce them near perfectly to trot songs while their dance instructor stares at them and frowns.

Also Yunho-sunbaenim stares, because whatever his last name is, it’s clear from the start that the kid’s kilometers better than all of them. Yunho-sunbaenim not only knows how to dance, but remembers choreography combinations and reproduces them better than perfectly, all the while staring at the rest of them and frowning.

His older friend stumbles on one of the first moves, laughing self-deprecatingly all the while, but Yunho-sunbaenim doesn’t smile back. He just stares and frown some more and helpfully corrects his friend’s mistakes.

Changmin can’t look away.

“He won a dance contest,” one of the boys in Changmin’s small group says suddenly, drawing Changmin’s attention immediately. “I’m Lee Sungmin,” he says, smiling kindly at Changmin.

“Shim Changmin,” Changmin says again, bowing immediately. He pauses, eyes flitting back to Yunho-sunbaenim and his friend, before settling on Lee Sungmin. “A dance contest?”

“He’s been here since 2001,” Lee Sungmin explains, still smiling. “Me too, actually. And that’s Junsu.” He points at the boy standing next to Yunho-sunbaenim, who’s picked up the choreography almost as fast as Yunho-sunbaenim, if not sooner. “And Hyukjae.” The shorter boy next to Junsu, with the band t-shirt Changmin wishes he had the guts to wear. “They’re best friends.”

Changmin bows again, trying not to trip too obviously over his feet.

Hyukjae and Junsu look worthy of being Yunho-sunbaenim’s best friends, moving through the dance like they could do it in their sleep.

“They’ve been here since 2000,” Sungmin-sunbaenim says.

Changmin swallows through the sudden lump in his throat. “Oh.”

“Well,” Sungmin-sunbaenim says. “Hyukjae came in 2001--”

Changmin trips, loses balance, and goes sprawling almost onto both of his palms.

It hurts, but then the music cuts off horrifyingly as their instructor calls for them all to break into small groups to practice more, and Changmin’s too busy being the center of unwanted attention to be in pain.

“Shim Changmin!” he barks. “Are you alright?”

Changmin flushes to his hairline, he’s so embarrassed. “Yes, sir,” he manages, voice a frail, fragile thing. He stands, brushing imaginary dirt from the front of his pants. He didn’t hit the ground that hard, only pinwheeled forward a bit and prayed that all that would happen was he’d scrape up his hands and his face would be saved--his friend’s asshole-ish declaration that the only reason people get scouted off the street by music companies is their good looks swirling around in his head in a mocking, cacophonous symphony.

When he looks up, there’s a hand in his face, pale, veined, and startling in its sudden appearance.

Changmin blinks, caught off guard.

“Don’t do that,” Yunho-sunbaenim says, voice cold, firm, and impersonal. “You’ll break a wrist.”

Changmin’s mouth parts, entirely without words.

Yunho-sunbaenim has a mole, right next to his upper left lip, and the H.O.T. famous middle part suits him. The rash is a rash and not a flush, and there are bags under his eyes that Changmin is almost surprised to see, given how talented the other boy is. He smells… Changmin’s inhaling before he can help himself, growing up in an alpha-omega household with alpha-omega grandparents and alpha-omega aunts and uncles something you don’t just unlearn.

He smells like fall, oddly enough.

Like warm comfort.

Like it’ll all be okay.

Then his eyes go hard, turn flint-like steel. “If you’re going to quit, you should just do it now,” Yunho-sunbaenim says, or snarls, more like.

He’s got an ugly twist to his lips now, the mole Changmin thought perchance was pretty, nothing more than a warning. A bad omen; perfection marred on the outside, as well as the inside.

Changmin bows, perfunctory and pristine. “Thank you, Sunbaenim,” he says.

Yunho-sunbae-- _Yunho’s_ mouth drops open, clearly surprised.

Changmin doesn’t even bother to hide his glee, just smiles, still perfectly polite, and turns to go back over to his small group.  

“Wow, Yundol,” he hears one of Yunho’s friends say as he goes, voice kind of in awe. “What did he ever do to you?”

“Shut up,” he hears Yunho says. “You’re half a beat late on the chorus.”

Changmin tunes them all out, tries not to want, desperately, with the homesickness of a fifteen-year-old thrust into grade school all over again, to call Yunho ‘Yundol.’ Or ‘Yunho-hyung.’ Or even, maybe, just ‘friend.’

“Are you alright?” Sungmin-sunbaenim says when Changmin reaches him, glancing between Yunho’s friends and Changmin nervously. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him, Yunho-hyung’s the best, even though he’s really strict about new choreography.”

Changmin’s stomach is a knot inside his ribcage. “I’m fine,” he says quietly. “Can we go over it one more time?”

He doesn’t look at Yunho and his friends for the rest of the lesson.

It’s fine.

\--

It’s not fine.

Changmin’s not the only ’88 line trainee. There are others, like Kwon Soonil, whom Changmin meets his third weekend spent at SM. There are younger people, people so young Changmin’s almost surprised, given the fact that his father hadn’t even supported allowing Changmin to audition, and only bowed because his mother said she mostly wanted to meet Boa.

Boa-sunbaenim.

Changmin meets Boa-sunbaenim, in brief passing, and does his best to commit every moment to memory for his mother, who’s ecstatic and beside herself and won’t stop trying to brush Changmin’s hair.

Then, of course, there are the older trainees, like Kim Heechul-sunbaenim, who Changmin learns has already had acting projects, and is so pretty that some of the uglier trainees have taken to calling him O-hyung.

It makes Changmin wish he were braver.

That he might be an alpha, like his mother, and could say something, instead of just smiling, sharp and frightened, and trying to eat his lunch as fast as he can.

But more importantly, Yunho-sunbaenim isn’t awful to the younger trainees, like Kwon Soonil, who Changmin meets his third weekend spent at SM.

Yunho-sunbaenim--Jung Yunho, Changmin’s learned--really did win a dance contest and show up at SM to be a trainee. He’s everyone’s favorite hyung and also self-elected student-instructor, as well as set to debut in a group with Kim Heechul, Kim Youngwoon, and Kim Jaejoong.

“It’s called Four Seasons,” Soonil says, around a mouthful of rice, seaweed sticking to the left side of his face.

Changmin stares at him, unable to look away from the food, and also trying to wrap his head around the fact that Yunho-sunbaenim is everyone’s favorite hyung.

“Yunho-sunbaenim?” he says, thinking maybe he’s misheard.

Soonil swallows his mouthful, then scoops himself another. “Yep.”

This time Changmin winces, wanting nothing more than to wipe the boy’s face clean. That would probably be weird. His mom would do it, but his mom’s his mom. And also an alpha.

Changmin doesn’t get much from Soonil beyond happiness and relaxation most of the time they meet for meals, but his gut says the boy’s going to be a beta.

Like Changmin probably will be, given his shyness and his timidness and his lack of desire for conflict.

He should take his own bite of food.

He doesn’t.

“What do you think of Yunho-sunbaenim?” he asks Soonil, worrying a bit at his bottom lip.

Soonil swallows, then burps, loudly.

Changmin doesn’t even try to hold back his distaste.

Across the cafeteria, Hyukjae-hyung and Donghae-hyung are laughing uproariously at something Yunho-sunbaenim’s said, and Changmin ducks down like they’re laughing at him before he can help himself.

Kim Jaejoong, the only one of that group who’s bothered to say more than two words to Changmin, smiles earnestly at Changmin.

Changmin smiles tentatively back, then shakes himself. “Soonil-ah.”

Soonil shrugs, then leans away when Changmin goes to shove him. “Ow--what--I dunno, Changmin,” he says. “Yunho-hyung’s nice. He’s been really helpful with my dancing.” He rubs pointedly at his arm, then goes for more rice.

Changmin looks between him, then back towards Yunho-sunbaenim’s friends.

They’re gathered around a book now, scribbling furiously.

“Why?” asks Soonil.

Changmin shoots him glance.

The other boy’s busy with his food, any exaggerated bodily harm well and truly forgotten.

“Nothing,” Changmin sighs. He shouldn’t make a big deal of it, but it hurts, honestly.

 _What did I do wrong?_ Changmin thinks.

He shoves his food towards Soonil.

His friend blinks. “You had like two bites?”

“I’m not hungry,” Changmin mutters, and stands. “I, uh, just remembered. I have to call my Mom. I promised her.”

He knocks into someone in his haste to get out of the cafeteria and because of his luck, it’s Kim Jaejoong.

“Sorry, Sunbaenim,” Changmin says hurriedly, not even stopping.

“Wait. Changmin-ah,” Jaejoong-hyung calls. “You should sit with us--”

Changmin pretends he can’t hear him and practically runs for the bathroom.

“Why’d you do that?” he thinks he hears someone say. Heechul-hyung.

“You’re such an alpha dick,” he definitely hears someone else say.

He ignores them.

His mother has got an afternoon class, but Changmin calls her anyway.

“Changmin, Baby?” she says, sounding distracted. “Sweetie, I’m working.”

Changmin swallows back the tears he hadn’t realized he’d been gathering, the past three weeks, and sits more solidly on the open toilet seat. “Right, sorry,” he says.

“Changmin--”

He hangs up.

His mother calls him right back.

He lets it go to voicemail.

It’s fine.

Changmin’s fine.

\--

Yunho-sunbaenim’s group doesn’t debut. Changmin finds out at one of the trainee watering holes--a water fountain, conveniently located between the practice rooms and the dance studio--from Youngwoon-hyung himself.

“Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim said our look was off,” the older kid says, smirking. He’s ’84 line, practically an adult, and surprisingly a beta, given his size. He’s also very pretty--good jawline, standard double eyelids--but then, Changmin’s starting to get used to that, at this point. Everyone is pretty at SM, and if they’re not stunning, there’s a knife for that, to quote Hyukjae-hyung.

Hyukjae-hyung was put in a group with Sungmin-hyung and Junsu-hyung that had a recording for a music program. A real-life music program, complete with a call time and a manager-hyung driving them to and from the shoot. All of the trainees, Changmin included, were jealous.

Except Yunho-sunbaneim, of course, because of Four Seasons. But now Four Seasons isn’t happening, because their look is off. Whatever that means.

“Sorry, Hyung,” one of the newer trainee says, patting Youngwoon-hyung on the arm. “You guys would have been great.”

Youngwoon-hyung smiles and shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “They wanted me to be Winter.” He rolls his eyes. “Yunho was Spring. I don’t think he’s very spring like.”

Changmin looks down at the floor quickly, hoping no one notices he sudden discomfort.

“Well, he would have been the maknae, right?” says Sungmin-hyung. He sounds weird about it--probably because he and Junsu-hyung and Hyukjae-hyung are such good friends with Yunho-sunbaenim and Heechul-hyung, and their group hasn’t disbanded. “Isn’t spring supposed to be about, like, new life?”

There’s an odd pause.

“Yunho-sunbaenim’s not going to be an omega, Sungmin-ah,” Youngwoon-hyung says, emphatically and almost angrily.

Sungmin-hyung steps back, clearly having misjudged, and Changmin finally lifts his head.

“Why would you say that, Hyung?” he says. He’s aware it’s practically the first words he’s said to Youngwoon-hyung, beyond, ‘no, it’s fine if you cut in front of me in line in the cafeteria’ and, ‘no, that wasn’t my foot you stepped on, honest.’

Youngwoon-hyung is looking at him like he can’t quite remember Changmin’s name.

Changmin fights the urge to sigh. “I’m Changmin,” he says helpfully.

Someone snickers.

Changmin thinks it’s Sungmin-hyung, but Changmin doesn’t want to look away from Youngwoon-hyung to check.

“I know that,” Youngwoon-hyung says. He’s got an ugly tilt to his head. “And I didn’t mean anything.”

Changmin bites his tongue. “Right,” he says. “Well, my dad’s an omega--”

“Youngwoon-ah!” calls a voice--Heechul-hyung--and the older boy arrives and drapes himself all over Youngwoon-hyung before he can say anything to Changmin’s rather explosive overshare.

He’s dragging an unwilling looking Yunho-sunbaenim and Donghae-hyung--only one of which actually smiles at Changmin. It’s not Yunho-sunbaenim, of course.

“I missed you,” Heechul-hyung continues, heedless of Changmin’s inner torment. “Whatever will I do now that we aren’t spending all our time together trying to figure out our look?”

Yunho-sunbaenim scowls and shoves at Heechul-hyung. “You don’t have to rub it in, Hyung,” he says.

“Yunho-yah.” Heechul-hyung’s eyes have gone soft.

Changmin feels decidedly out of place. “Um.”

They all zero in on him, some of them kinder than others.

“Hi, Changminnie,” Donghae-hyung says. “Have you heard the new Rain song?”

Changmin tries to smile back. “I liked it,” he says, softly.

Youngwoon-hyung makes an odd scoffing noise and finally shoves Heechul-hyung off of his shoulder.

Changmin turns to Yunho-sunbaenim before he can say anything, and before he himself loses his nerve.  “Sunbaenim,” he says.

Yunho-sunbaenim blinks at him, eyes wide. Some part of Changmin still thinks he’s unfairly pretty. He ignores it.

“I’m sorry your group disbanded,” Changmin says.

Yunho-sunbaenim cycles through about three different emotions. His mouth opens.

Changmin doesn’t give him time to respond, just bows again quickly, and hurries away.

“Yunho-yah,” he hears Heechul-hyung say, and then yelp, when someone hits him.

Changmin doesn’t look back.

Sungmin-hyung apologizes to him later, even though he wasn't the one who’d said it. They’re both putting on their shoes at the front of the building and have ended up standing next to each other, and Sungmin-hyung smiles at him like he did on that first day.

He sounds like he means it, even though he wasn't the one who’d said it, then wraps Changmin up in a conspiring hug, offers him secrets about the cafeteria ladies and how to get extra helpings for lunch, and then, shyly, mentions that it’s really cool, Changmin’s dad being an omega.

So it’s not all bad, even though Yunho-sunbaenim hates him.

Changmin thinks he might even have friends after all of this.

\--

It’s days after they’ve all been introduced to the latest SM hopeful--an ’86line named Park Yoochun, who was supposed to have come from America, and who only blinked confusedly at Changmin when he tried out what little English his father has passed onto him--when Changmin gets called out of vocal lessons by Sooyeon-noona, who Changmin hasn’t seen since that fateful day, long ago, when his entire life changed.

It’s a solo lesson; Changmin’s gotten good enough for those, now, and it makes butterflies dance in his stomach and has him sticking his tongue out at his sister Sooyeon at dinner. Changmin’s practicing scales, trying his hardest to keep from breathing too frantically as he transitions between head voice and chest voice, when the knock comes.

Sooyeon-noona is as commanding and alpha-like as Changmin remembers, but it’s late November, and the holiday cheer hasn’t managed to escape her.

She’s wearing a lopsided Santa hat.

Changmin stares at it, mouth parted.

She tugs it off, embarrassed, and then throws it--actually throws it--somewhere behind her.

The man standing beside her grapples for it, startled, shouting, “Ah, that startled me!” and staring at Sooyeon-noona with raised eyebrows in turn.

“Shut up,” she says. “He’s like a puppy.”

Changmin has the terrible urge to cover his ears.

His vocal coach clears his throat, head tilting to the side.

“Jung-ssi,” Sooyeon-noona says. “May I borrow Changmin?”

Jung-seonsaengnim nods. “Don’t think this means you’re getting out of practicing your runs,” the man tells Changmin seriously, with enough gravitas that Changmin’s teeth clack together in his haste to nod.

“Yes, Seonsaengnim,” he says, bowing. He stands, bowing once more, and coming to stand awkwardly beside Sooyeon-noona.

“Noona?” he tries.

“Let’s go to my office first,” Sooyeon-noona says, voice a little pinched. “I have to take you to Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim’s office for a photoshoot, but we can talk first.” She’s still faintly blushing, but her eyes are kind.

Changmin nods slowly, stomach turning over in knots at the thought of the head of SM. “Alright,” he says. He shoots his vocal coach one last bow, before following the woman down the winding halls.

“How have you been?” Sooyeon-noona asks him as they go. “I heard you’ve been making friends. With, um, Kim Junsu? And, um, Jung Yunho-ssi?”

Changmin is so surprised he laughs, loud and unbecoming. He clutches his face immediately, horrified, and manages to compose himself somehow. “Sorry,” he mumbles into his hands. “And, uh, I suppose.”

“You suppose?” For some reason Sooyeon-noona looks annoyed. “I’ll kill him,” she mutters, which is shocking, and then can’t be it, because it sounds like she’s talking about Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim, and Changmin has to have misheard.

“Everyone has been really nice,” Changmin says. He doesn’t know where this conversation is going. Just the other week he went to see a movie with his mother, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d think he was about to be thrown out in a box. Sunk in the Han River never to be seen again, except his mother is an alpha and likely to burn the entire place down trying to find him.

She says it has less to do with her biology and more to do with the fact that they share a profound, ‘you were untimely ripped from me’ sort of bond.

Changmin usually rolls his eyes and shoves her, embarrassed to be talking about it.

His dad usually puts a hand on his own scars, and smiles fondly down at both of Changmin’s sisters.

Changmin thinks very hard of his family, as he walks to what feels like his doom. If he has to go out this way, he wants his last thoughts to be of them.

“What is your family like, Changmin-ah?” Sooyeon-noona says, like a mind reader. She pulls open the door to her office and crosses to stand behind her desk immediately.

Changmin follows her hesitantly, hands clasped protectively in front of his stomach. “Well, happy?” he tries. “I don’t understand, Noona--”

“Your mother is an alpha, yes?” Sooyeon-noona continues. She frowns, mutters something about how ‘Jung will be an alpha, and probably Kim Jaejoong’ and Changmin’s brows pull together, incredibly confused.  

“Yes?” he says.

Sooyeon-noona stops muttering and looks sharply at him. “And your father?” She scratches the side of her face absently. “An omega?”

Changmin knows he has to be respectful and answer everyone’s questions and generally not be an embarrassment to the Shim name, but he’s starting to feel like this line of questioning is highly inappropriate. And a prelude to him leaving SM in a box along the Han River. “I don’t know if I should be answering, Im-seonsaengnim,” he says, delicately, hoping desperately that he’s not about to extradite the process.

Sooyeon-noona’s eyes widen, and her mouth drops open almost comically wide.

The man who’d been with them--who was still with them, standing silently in the doorway--hides a laugh behind a poorly concealing cough. “Sooyeon!”

“Oh, Changmin-ah, I didn’t mean--” Sooyeon-noona says, at the same time there’s a knock on the door of her office.

She stops.

Changmin’s spine goes rigid stiff.

The knock comes again.

“Who is it?” Sooyeon-noona says, then sighs. She walks quickly back past Changmin and pulls the door open, waving at Changmin as she goes.

Changmin follows after her with only mild trepidation, then stops, awkwardly, not sure how he’s gotten in front of Sooyeon-noona, and staring up at a equally surprised looking Jung Yunho.

“Oh,” Sooyeon-noona says, seeing him as well.

“You’ve already got him,” the man standing behind Yunho says.

Changmin hadn’t noticed him, busy as he was gaping at Yunho himself.

The other boy looks about as in the loop as Changmin is, but despite that still seems to be holding himself together with poise. Maybe he’s here to kill Changmin for them. Maybe this is some sort of weird initiation. Maybe, Yunho’s going to be killed _with_ Changmin, and they’ll both go home to their parents in boxes and Heechul-hyung will gather the other trainees and tell stories about the two of them like they’re Romeo and Juliet.

Or.

Changmin doesn’t know where that came from--he hates Yunho on bad days, doesn’t think of him on good days, wonders what he has to do to impress him on… other days.

Also, Yunho is so unfairly composed that Changmin kind of hates him, because Changmin’s about to trip out of his skin.

“Hello,” he says to Yunho, to be polite. He bows. If he’s going to die--whether it be by Yunho’s hand or Sooyeon-noona’s hand or even the man who was clearly in charge of bringing Yunho here’s hand--he’ll do it politely. He’ll do it with large Bambi eyes and a highly practiced pout also, but that’s between him and the only girl he’s ever kissed.

Yunho bows back at him, saying nothing.

He’s thinner than Changmin remembers.

Which is odd to think--they saw each other just that morning in passing in the cafeteria--but is also the truth. It’s possible this is just the first time Changmin’s ever seen the back of Yunho’s neck properly, not counting all the time he was glaring holes in it across the practice room during dance class.

Sooyeon-noona puts a warm hand on Changmin’s back. “Sungjae will take you both to see Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim,” she says, probably trying to be comforting, but mostly, just affirming the fact that Changmin is going to his death at present.

He swallows, suddenly breathless, and somehow manages to nod and smile.

“Right,” Sungjae-hyung says, clapping his hands. “Come on, then.”

Changmin doesn’t want to--Sooyeon-noona was not two minutes ago asking him some highly invasive and weird family history questions like it was important to know who carried Changmin’s sisters with regards to his future singing career--but Changmin looks back at Sooyeon-noona for reassurance anyway.

She’s an alpha, and his mother is an alpha, and part of Changmin is always going to be looking for that kind of reassurance.

It’s probably why he likes Boa-sunbaenim so much, even if she is mostly busy being an actual artist and playing around with Kim Jaejoong.

Yunho walks beside him quietly, following after Sungjae-hyung with little comment.

Changmin can’t help but look at him for a long moment, cataloguing all the little lines and flaws in his skin. The bags under his eyes, the creases in the corner of his mouth, the veins standing out beneath the ice-pale skin of his throat. He realizes with horror that he’s been thinking of the other boy informally, like they’re friends--not even as a _hyung_ \--and finds himself saying, “Yunho-sunbaenim,” in a hush almost before he can stop himself.

Yunho-sunbaenim looks at him, to his credit, not like he’s about to start punching Changmin in the face so that they can stuff him in a box and send him down the river, but still with an air of confidence and arrogance that makes Changmin kind of want to start punching _him_ … so they can stuff him in a box and send him down the Han River.

Changmin shakes his hair out of his eyes, trying to be less of an idiot. “Do you know where we’re going?” he says.

“No.” Yunho-sunbaenim isn’t even nice about the negative, just brisk and brusque and terse.

If they ended up stuffed in the same box, Changmin would have no qualms about gnawing off the man’s arm to use as a oar or something like people do in Mob dramas.

They walk for a beat.

Maybe Changmin’s father had a point when he told Changmin TV would rot his brain.

Yunho-sunbaenim is staring at him almost like he feels sorry for Changmin.

Changmin worries the other boy can read minds and has been privy to Changmin’s ridiculous theory and inner monologue this entire time. His mouth parts in horror. “Hyung--”

“They told me it was for a photoshoot,” Yunho-sunbaenim says--explains, Changmin realizes. He’s being nice. He’s actually taking the time to try to explain things to Changmin, which is just so weird, that Changmin probably gapes at him for far too long to be normal.

“They told me that too,” he says. “Sooyeon-noona, I mean. She said I had to go with her to Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim’s office for a photoshoot.” _And then she interrogated me about the fact that my father could have given birth to me_ , Changmin thinks, but doesn’t say, because despite the television-rot his brain is no doubt suffering, he’s still got some sense of decorum. “Do you think it’s a group photoshoot?” he asks Yunho-sunbaenim, mostly talking for the sake of talking, at this point, but also just trying not to look like a complete idiot. People do group photoshoots, one, and two, he and Yunho-sunbaenim are… more than one person.

Fuck.

Changmin is an idiot.

“I hate cameras,” says Changmin, an idiot.

Yunho-sunbaenim looks at him with all the barely concealed disdain one might offer a fly caught in their soup. He squints like what he wants to say is, ‘well then why the heck are you at SM trying to be _an idol_ ,’ but doesn’t say anything.

Changmin actually thinks that’s progress.

The first thing the older boy said to him was that Changmin ought to quit if he wasn’t serious, after all. He’s glad Yunho-sunbaenim’s doing his utmost not to repeat those mistakes.

Also, Changmin thinks he might cry, if the older boy did.

Like. In front of Sungjae-hyung and Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim and everything.

“I’m glad you showed up,” Yunho-sunbaenim says, thankfully having missed all of that because he can’t actually read minds. “I was honestly worried that they were going to have me taken care of.” He glances at Changmin quickly, then nods his head, one hand coming up like he can’t decide if he wants to make quotations or mime beheading.

Changmin takes it back. Yunho-sunbaenim _can_ read minds. Hopefully he’s totally fine with Changmin’s family history and also his propensity for over dramatics. “Oh, me too,” he says, brightly-- _cheerfully_ \--not at all like he’s hearing warning bells in his head that Yunho-sunbaenim can also listen to. “Like…” Changmin can practically feel the world vomit coming but he can’t help himself. “Kibum-hyung says it’s just because I went to see that movie--”

“You saw that one too!” says Yunho-sunbaenim, sounding actually excited at the thought of it, which.

Changmin is thrown for a loop. Also taken aback by how fucking attractive the other boy is. Like, again, idols, but Yunho-sunbaenim really could be a solo artist, he’s so pretty. He won’t need help from a knife. Not like Changmin, who overheard someone say something about his nose a few weeks back, and spent the time since then giving himself surreptitious once overs in the practice room mirror.  

“Yes,” he says, trying not to lose his enthusiasm to that suddenly barrage of morbidity. “My mom came to visit and we went to see it--” And… now he’s thinking about Sooyeon-noona and her odd line of questioning and feeling nervous bubbles in his stomach again.

Yunho-sunbaenim looks pityingly at him, like he thinks Changmin is some sort of baby who misses his home and his parents daily.

He is. He does.

Yunho-sunbaenim doesn’t need to know that.

“Do you see them often? Your parents, I mean?” Yunho-sunbaenim says. “I’m only here on weekends--and Gwangju’s an entire train away--but I guess it’s different for you since you’re closer?”

Changmin tries out his best happy, totally happy child smile. “Nope,” he says, watching Yunho’s brow furrow in quick confusion. “I try to see my mom, though--” He realizes he’s making no sense since he lives with them and still has to beg them to let him go out on the weekends without them but doesn’t stop. “We’re really close since she had me--” He breaks off, cursing to shame the woman in question in his head.

He blames Sooyeon-noona.

Sooyeon-noona put the thought in his head.

Yunho-sunbaenim is going to think Changmin’s an idiot, _and_ that it’s because his father… didn’t have him? Changmin’s an idiot because Changmin’s an idiot period full stop.

“We’re here.”

They’re here.

In front of Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim office.

Changmin has a moment of unconcealed panic. “Wait--”

Yunho-sunbaenim grabs him by the hand, palm clammy and sweaty and nothing at all like the composed, cool sunbae Changmin always pictures in his mind. He’s so much warmer than Changmin is, almost like a furnace. Changmin has the inane thought that it’s all of his dumb passion. All of his dumb competitiveness, heating him from the inside.

He lets go of Yunho-sunbaenim’s hand.

Fair play too, since the moment they’re through the door they’re being inducted into SM’s latest boyband, which doesn’t have a name, but has a leader.

Yunho-sunbaenim, evidently, because Jaejoong-hyung might be oldest, but very clearly does not want the responsibility, and Junsu-hyung has to be the sexy one. It’s because he’s the second best dancer, and they know he’ll be able to pull off all the body rolls. That’s what Changmin assumes, anyway. He’s no master of the industry--just the maknae, with big eyes and a high, angelic voice.

Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim is the master, and the man claps them all on the shoulder bracingly, before sending them from his office with the instructions to talk to their parents and to think about four character names.

Changmin mostly thinks about Yunho-sunbaenim’s hand in his own, warm, calming, and surprisingly kind.  

Yunho- _hyung_ , he thinks. Jaejoong-hyung. Junsu-hyung. Yoochun-hyung.

They’re going to be in a band.

They’re going to be great.

Or… something. Changmin swallows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GET READY FRIENDS WE’RE GOING ALL THE WAY!
> 
> Share this fic: [Tumblr](https://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/184398140385/my-heart-froze-in-early-winter-author-zimriya) |[Twitter](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1120811782820573184).


	2. shiver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that I am one) a duo fan and two) JYJ feature and have speaking roles in this fic, on the same level as Yunho’s POV. ~~Although given Changmin is much more petty, I will live much more vicariously for him as the story unfolds.~~

#### 02\. Shiver

* * *

“Wow,” Jaejoong-hyung says, under his breath, but also out loud. “Changmin-ah. I get why you’re pretty like a girl, now.”

There is a horrible, horrifying pause.

To be fair, Jaejoong-hyung’s parents look the most horrified of them all, glancing between Jaejoong-hyung, Changmin, and Changmin’s mother like they’re about to burst into flames, or at least drop into a full formal bow in an attempt to make amends.

Jaejoong-hyung himself looks like he can’t quite believe he’s actually said the words out loud.

Changmin still kind of wants to punch his teeth in.

“I mean,” says Jaejoong-hyung.

Changmin’s almost tempted to let him finish. There’s no way he can salvage the situation; Changmin would almost be impressed, if he did, since there’s really no recovering from insinuating that Changmin’s ‘pretty like a girl’ looks have anything to do with is mother’s genitalia. Really, Jaejoong-hyung should just change the subject.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Changmin’s Eomeoni,” Jaejoong-hyung says, changing the subject. He bows, twice, before scurrying away to stand between Junsu-hyung and Yoochun-hyung, who are inspecting the sink for their brand new kitchen.

Changmin’s mother looks down at Changmin with a gobsmacked expression on her face. “Well,” she says finally. “Changmin-ah.”

Changmin colors, ducks his head, and picks at a thread on the hem of his shirt. He doesn’t know what to say either.

“I’m sorry about Jaejoong-hyung,” says Yunho-hyung before Changmin has to. “He’s… ah.” He trails off, clearly trying to mince words, and watches Jaejoong-hyung laugh at something Yoochun-hyung’s said. “A good person,” Yunho-hyung decides on finally.

Changmin nearly swallows his tongue. “Hyung,” he manages.

Yunho-hyung winces but keeps a straight face. “Never been farther north than Gongju before?” he tries. “Ah. He’s really sorry, Eomeonim, I’m sure.” He smiles, apologetic to a fault.

Changmin’s mother smiles back at him, charmed despite herself. Despite Jaejoong-hyung’s rudeness.

“And, well, I mean, I know you--you’re not any less of a mother--” Yunho-hyung’s spiraling, wind-milling through sentence after awkward sentence in hopes that somehow he’ll stick the landing. “Changminnie said you’d given birth to him--”

“Oh my God, Yunho-hyung!” interrupts Changmin, red-faced and horrified.

“You did!” Yunho-hyung replies, voice shrill and desperate.

Changmin can see the whites of his eyes. “I know but don’t tell _her_ that!” he whisper-shouts back at him.

“I’m sorry!” says Yunho. “I panicked!”

“Clearly!” Changmin wonders the picture they must make, blushing, shrieking, and pointedly ignoring his mother between them. They must look absurd.

Thankfully, Changmin’s mother has never been one for propriety. She throws her head back and laughs. “Dongsik-ah!” she calls. “Your child is going around telling people how he came out of my womb, again!”

Changmin’s father doesn’t dignify that with a response, just snorts, and continues what is no doubt a highly intelligent conversation with Yunho-hyung and Junsu-hyung’s fathers about their soon-to-be real estate.

Jaejoong-hyung definitely trips over air, but his parents have him surrounded, so all he can do is keep nodding to whatever it is they’re saying.

That’s good. Changmin would hate to ruin their first official family meet-and-greet by punching someone.

“Although, I suppose he’s my child, in this situation,” says Changmin’s mother, wiping non-existent tears from her eyes and reaching out to pinch Changmin’s still flushing cheeks. “Aren’t you?” she says, grinning. “Given you came out of me--”

“Mom!” Changmin yelps, pulling away from her hands and looking helplessly towards Yunho-hyung like he’ll help.

He won’t; he started this by bringing it up in the first place.

“I told you that in confidence!” Changmin tells Yunho-hyung, as a last resort. It’s a bald-faced lie. Changmin blurted it out when he was panicking to match Yunho-hyung, on their way to Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim’s _office_.

Yunho-hyung doesn’t call him on it. “I’m sorry, Changminnie,” he says, and certainly looks it.

Changmin is struck by the very bizarre urge to hug him, or something, which is weird because he’s the youngest. Yunho-hyung should be the one hugging him. Or-- Not hugging. No one should be hugging anyone. They should really be looking around their dorm, familiarizing themselves with their home away from home--talking about the important things, like how Changmin is still going to be expected to finish school (with professor parents, Changmin pities the manager who’d have to try to tell them he couldn’t) while attending idol schedules.

He knows it’s possible--Boa-noona’d done it--but it’s still a daunting prospect. Changmin’s still not all the way sure how his friends feel about the fact that he actually did get scouted off the streets for his looks and vocal talent. He can’t imagine what it’ll be like once he goes back and sees them all and knows they’ve seen him sing in _public_. Seen him stand on stage in a costume and sing about wanting to be a _kitten_.

Yunho-hyung is still looking at Changmin with large, beseeching eyes.

Changmin feels his skin heat again. “Aw, Hyung,” he says, and rubs fruitlessly at the back of his neck like he’s been bitten by a mosquito and that’s why it’s lighting up like it’s on fire. “It’s fine.” He darts a look at his mother, who’s moved away from the two of them and gone to join his father over with Yunho-hyung’s parents. “I didn’t…ah… tell you that in confidence--” He breaks off, startled, when Yunho-hyung takes him by the hand. “Hyung?” His voice is so high it’s embarrassing, only, their vocal teacher told them SM liked that--liked how high Changmin’s voice was, wanted him to practice that, work his upper range so that it could be his _signature_ , or something, whatever that means.

“Come on,” says Yunho-hyung, and tugs Changmin until he follows.

The rest of their band has congregated over by the couches, blinking down at their sorry excuse for a television. Changmin’s family has a television--he knows Yunho-hyung’s doesn’t, and neither does Jaejoong-hyung’s nor Junsu-hyung’s--but they need one now that they’re idols. To watch their seniors, and keep up on the news.

Yunho-hyung pulls Changmin to a stop next to Jaejoong-hyung, then coughs. “Jaejoong-hyung,” he says.

Jaejoong-hyung turns to look at him, then at Changmin, then back at Yunho-hyung. “Yunho,” he says, after a pause. “Changmin… are we doing everyone--Junsu?”

Junsu-hyung waves, mouth open in a wide, gummy smile that Changmin’s much more used to seeing on Hyukjae-hyung’s face, but keeps quiet.

“You should apologize,” Yunho-hyung says.

Jaejoong-hyung rolls his head back in a groan, loud enough to catch their parents’ attention, and then softer when he notices them looking. “You’re really running with this leader thing, aren’t you?” he says.

Yunho-hyung’s eyes go flinty. “You were rude,” he says.

Changmin squirms, wishing that Yunho-hyung would let go of his hand. “Yunho-hyung,” he tries, very quiet--too quiet. “It’s fine--”

“It’s not fine,” Yunho-hyung says. “It was rude--”

“I’m sorry,” Jaejoong-hyung says, and he sounds like he means it. “I--we were all thinking it but--”

“Hey, no, leave me out of this,” says Junsu-hyung, and then calls for his mother loudly. “Eomma! What do you think of the bedroom?” He leaves the three of them to their own devices to discuss their room of bunk beds without even a backwards glance.

“I’m sorry, Changmin-ah,” Jaejoong-hyung says, eyes wide and honest. “I--really,” he says. “I was stupid.”

Yunho-hyung’s brows lift.

“And rude,” Jaejoong-hyung adds, with a hint of a smirk.

Yunho-hyung lets go of Changmin so that he can bat at Jaejoong-hyung, play-fighting like they don’t with others because they’ve known each other the longest.

Changmin’s belly twists itself in anxious, jealous knots for some reason. Yoochun-hyung’s even greener to SM. Changmin has no business being jealous--Heechul-hyung and Donghae-hyung are far closer to Yunho-hyung than Jaejoong-hyung.

But Heechul-hyung’s never said a mean word about Changmin’s mother.

And Donghae-hyung’s father has been nothing but supportive about his son’s designation.

Changmin swallows. “It’s okay, Jaejoong-hyung,” he says. It comes out as two sentences.

Yunho-hyung seems appeased. “Good,” he says, then smiles. “It would suck to debut hating each other.”

Changmin and Jaejoong-hyung both roll their eyes this time. “We don’t hate each other, Yunho-hyung,” says Changmin.

Jaejoong-hyung nods, dragging Changmin in close so they can stare Yunho-hyung down together. He pauses. “You’re like a string bean,” he says. “You need more meat on you.”

Changmin’s mother’s head swings around like she’s got some sort of homing beacon, personally calibrated to alert her to any and all mentions of her children (because Changmin’s seen her do this for Sooyeon and Jooyeon too) and food. “That’s right,” she says, addressing the room at large. “Who will be feeding you?” That one’s thrown partially towards their accompanying manager-hyungs, who Changmin had honestly forgotten about once they got swept up in the ins and outs of their new dorm. “Can any of you cook?” Changmin’s mother pauses. “I know Changminnie can’t--”

“Mom!” Changmin protests again, flushing some more. He squirms free of Jaejoong-hyung’s grasp only to be pulled back in, all sharp elbows and too thin torsos colliding in sharp relief.

“I can cook,” says Jaejoong-hyung, straight to the point.

Changmin’s mom looks at him, honestly surprised, but also looking suitably forgiving.

Jaejoong-hyung’s head dips down again like he’s going to apologize.

Changmin shoves free this time, ignoring the fact that his hand definitely ends up in Jaejoong-hyung’s mouth for a few seconds. “I can cook,” he says.

“You can heat ramen,” his mother corrects.

“Jaejoongie makes the most wonderful bibimbap,” Jaejoong-hyung’s mother says.

Jaejoong-hyung nods, modest despite the affirmation. “It’s alright.”

“It’s delicious,” his father puts in. “You put all your sisters to shame.”

Jaejoong-hyung dips his head, smiling happily but clearly embarrassed.

“How many sisters has he got?” Yoochun-hyung mutters under his breath.

“Like fifteen right?”Jusnu-hyung whispers back.

“Seven,” Yunho-hyung corrects, shaking his head. “And none of them want to marry you.”

Junsu-hyung looks offended. “Well, Junho’s not playing the wedding march for you either, Yunho-hyung,” he says.

Yunho-hyung lifts a brow. “Isn’t Junho a beta?”

Junsu-hyung looks more offended. “He’s my age!” he protests, then, seeing Yunho-hyung’s gleeful expression. “Yah, _Hyung_!” He shoves Yunho-hyung, glaring, and Yunho-hyung goes sprawling into Jaejoong-hyung with amusement.

“Are you sure?” he says. “I thought he was at least five years older--”

“Mentally,” Changmin puts in, never one to pass up the opportunity.

“Mentally,” Yunho-hyung agrees, sparing Changmin a conspiratorial grin that makes pleasure curl warm and heady in Changmin’s belly.

“You’re _mean_ ,” snaps Junsu-hyung.

“Honest,” parries Yunho-hyung.

“Loud,” his mother says pleasantly, and Yunho-hyung settles, immediately apologetic, cowed.

“Shhh,” Yoochun-hyung says. “We’re discussing how Jaejoong-hyung’s going to keep us from starving.”

As one, they all face forward, contrite expressions on their face.

In the corner, the manager-hyungs have a pinched, worrisome expression on all of their faces. “Oh no,” one totally mutters.

“They’re cute,” the other one possibly returns.           

“That’s good,” Yunho-hyung’s mother says finally, addressing Yoochun-hyung. She exchanges a knowing look with the rest of the mothers “Yunho can heat ramen.”

Yunho-hyung’s the one sputtering now. “Mom!”

“Junsu too,” adds Junsu-hyung’s mother.

“Yoochun burned it, once,” says Yoochun-hyung’s mother.

“You’re the worst,” Junsu-hyung says, loudly. “You’re _mean_.” And then he stops, clearly feeling déjà vu, and as one, they burst into loud, boisterous laughter.

Changmin fits himself into Yunho-hyung’s side like he belongs there, giggling, and for the first time since Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim told them they’d be debuting in December, he feels at home.

\--

Technically speaking, they debut in January. Really, it’s December 23rd as part of a showcase with Britney Spears and Boa-sunbaenim, but technically they do no promotions or work in the industry until after their single drops on January 14, 2004. It sells maybe three thousand copies in the first three weeks of release--not horrifying, but not at all what Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim had been expecting. It does better after that, sweeping past Yunho’s birthday and leading into Changmin’s, but between school, practice, and music programs, Changmin doesn’t have time to think about that. He’s never been so tired before, carted around between waiting rooms and dressing rooms. He’s never been more alive.

He’s also, most glaringly of all, never been the baby of a family before, and it shows.

The week of Changmin’s seventeenth birthday, they’re on a music program, and for some reason, the hosts think it’d be a great idea to run a hidden camera on Changmin. Changmin would have found it funny, had it been Junsu-hyung, maybe.

Mostly, Changmin spends the entire walk back into the building trying to remember how to breathe, and also scared shitless that whatever peace he and Yunho-hyung had made since their less than stellar first meeting has been reduced to rubble by a few biased MCs.

And then they give him the cake and sing him Happy Birthday and it all makes sense, Yunho-hyung laughing, and smiling, and nudging into his side once the cameras are gone to say, “was I convincing? Wouldn’t I make a good actor, Changminnie? Are you mad?”

Changmin’s supposed to say, “no, no, and no.” Changmin laughs, puts on a brave face, and is quiet for the rest of the celebration, zeroing in on a thread on Yunho-hyung’s glove, and letting the fact that they got one over on him and it’s his birthday keep him from getting told off for staying pressed close to him while pretending to pick at it.

Their performance goes well, Changmin’s voice doesn’t break, and the fanchants are deafening; the sea of red balloons touching.

Afterwards, when they’re in the car on their way back to SM, Changmin ends up next to Yunho-hyung once more, still silent, still awkward, and entirely unnoticed.  

Jaejoong-hyung starts a conversation with Junsu-hyung about the MC’s on Show Tank.

Yoochun-hyung plays a mobile game on a manager-hyung’s phone.

Changmin stares out the window, silent.

Yunho-hyung nudges him. “Yah,” he says quietly. “Changmin-ah.”

Changmin turns to look at him because he has to, eyes falling shut at the unfairness of it for all of a second, before reading a brave face.

“You’re actually mad,” Yunho-hyung says, before Changmin can even play at polite dongsaeng. His expression must be telling, because Yunho’s shutters even more gravely. “You’re still mad,” he determines. “Changmin-ah.”

Changmin doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “I’m not mad,” he says. “I wasn’t mad.” He’s not lying. He wasn’t mad--he was terrified--but admitting that is somehow even worse, and anger seems easier.

Yunho-hyung frowns. “No,” he agrees, already too knowing for his own good. “You were really upset, though,” he decides.

Changmin spares a glance towards the front of the car, still not entirely sure how he and Yunho-hyung got the back to themselves.

Usually they split them up, or if they have to drive them together, put Yunho-hyung in the front next to manager-hyung so he can learn their schedule and do leaderly things. Changmin supposes it’s a testament to just how shaken he was that he hadn’t noticed Yunho-hyung getting into the car next to him in the first place.

“I,” Changmin says finally, because he has to answer; maknae rules. “I-- You can-- You can do anything to me,” he says, because he has to; maknae rules-- “But don’t-- Don’t pretend you hate me.” He ducks his head so he can hide behind his bangs, embarrassed, tired, and still sore over it, apparently. “I thought you hated me, earlier,” he says. When he risks a glance, Yunho-hyung’s brows are furrowed. “Hyung--”

Yunho-hyung grabs him by both hands, sudden and shocking and totally something the rest of the car should notice, only simultaneously, Yoochun-hyung loses at his game because Junsu-hyung elbows him trying to see out the window, and Changmin and Yunho-hyung’s moment gets lost in the chaos.

Not for Changmin. Changmin’s kind of freaking out, attention stuck on every point of contact between him and Yunho-hyung, nerves lit up like being plugged into a live wire, heart trying to beat right out of his chest and into Yunho-hyung’s.

“Changmin-ah,” Yunho-hyung says, voice earnest and hard. “Don’t tell me that.”

Changmin blinks. “Don’t tell you I thought you hated me?” he asks. “I mean, the first thing you ever said to me was if I wasn’t serious, I should quit now; how was I not supposed to think you hated me--”

“Don’t tell me I can do anything to you,” Yunho-hyung interrupts. “Don’t tell _anyone_ that. Changmin-ah!”

Changmin winces at the volume and shrinks at the words, hunching his shoulders so that he doesn’t fight his way free of the grip Yunho-hyung has on his fingers. It’s painfully tight in his earnestness, but Changmin shouldn’t pull away. That would be rude. Changmin’s not rude.

Changmin’s the maknae.

“But I’m the maknae,” Changmin says. He can’t help it. It slips out without his permission, which is ironic, probably, and apt.

Yunho-hyung’s mouth turns down at the corners. “Changmin--” His hold falters.

“Anyway, it’s fine, Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says quickly, finally twisting free of Yunho-hyung’s fingers. He sits back in his seat, and straightens, shoulders down, eyes ahead, but looking down. “It was funny, right?” he adds, because he means it--it’s fine, it’s fine, _it’s fine_ \--but he can’t really help but glance at Yunho-hyung to check-in anyway. Has to look, wants to look, _needs to look_ , so that it can be fine, be fine, _be fine_ \-- “Right?” Changmin says again, hating that he means it, needs it, wants it. He can’t help himself. “I thought it was funny.” This is probably why his grandmother is convinced he’ll be a beta; this is probably why their staff keeps debating what hair they want to give him for their full-length album.

“Right,” Yunho-hyung says finally, accepting Changmin’s subject change with polished grace. “It’ll be a good segment. You’re adorable.”

Changmin makes a face.

Yunho-hyung grins. “You’re not adorable?” he says. He raises his voice. “Junsu-yah!”

Junsu-hyung turns, done with Jaejoong-hyung’s antics and Yoochun-hyung’s distracted silence.

“Isn’t Changminnie adorable?”

Junsu-hyung drops his chin down like he’s got on glasses and is trying to make a point, skating his gaze up and down what little of Changmin he can see from his space squished between Jaejoong-hyung and the window. He pauses. “I’m the cute one.” He grins. “If I can’t be the dancer, then I’ll be the cute one.”

Jaejoong-hyung lounges back against the seatback. “You’re the sexy one,” he says. “Idiot.” He elbows Junsu-hyung in the side.

Junsu-hyung yelps, overdramatic to a fault. “Ow,” he says.

“Baby,” says Jaejoong-hyung, fond.

“I thought the point was he isn’t the baby?” interjects Yoochun-hyung, not looking up from his mobile game.

As one, they all turn to stare blankly at him, and he lifts his head when the silence gets pervasive.

“What?”

“How did you end up in the front seat, again?” Junsu-hyung says finally.

“Well, Yunho-hyung was too busy ogling Changminnie.”

Yunho-hyung immediately starts laughing hysterically. “Hyung,” he says loudly, addressing the poor manager-hyung stuck driving them. “Woojin-hyung! What are our schedules?”

Woojin-hyung keeps driving with the patience and practice of a saint, which is almost impressive, given they’ve only been active for two months. “Did someone say something?” the man asks pleasantly. “I can’t hear--Yunho-yah, if you’re going to discuss schedules, please stop ogling Changmin and sit in the front--”

Yunho-hyung sputters, red in the face, but the rest of the car cackles.

“You’re alright, Woojin-hyung,” Jaejoong-hyung says finally. “For an alpha.”

Junsu-hyung does the fake over the glasses look again, as none of them have presented yet, but Woojin-hyung just rolls his eyes and takes a quick turn.

Jaejoong-hyung sways in his seat, belted in since you can’t be too careful. “Whoa. Hyung.”

Woojin-hyung gives them the middle finger and they all dissolve into giggles.

Changmin does is best to forget all about his birthday hidden camera, and certainly what Yunho-hyung told him in the car, even though he thinks about it, a lot, when they’re exhausted and expected to give their all.

In March, Yunho-hyung and Jaejoong-hyung are already doing fanservice; Yunho-hyung sits in Changmin’s lap; TVXQ wins on _Inkigayo_ for ‘Hug.’ In April, Jaejoong-hyjng is confirmed alpha; Yunho-hyung smiles at Changmin overtop Junsu-hyung’s shoes--the only one who notices, the only one who cares--and insists on Yoochun-hyung doing the dishes the next time they all eat.

They perform in Los Angeles, Beijing, Taiwan.

It’s nice. Sweet. Fun.

Changmin could get used to being the baby of the family.

\--

Changmin hates being the baby of the family.

If he wasn’t the youngest, he wouldn’t have to go first, wouldn’t be stuck gaping at the men he calls brothers while they shout and make a fuss and generally disrupt the peace of Bora Bora after sunset, all because fucking Yunho-hyung had to trip on his way out of his swim trunks for skinny dipping, and gave the four of them a free show climbing off the pier into the ocean.

So maybe it’s not even because Changmin’s the youngest. Maybe it’s just bad luck and Junsu-hyung’s an asshole--“Hey, Yunho-hyung! Be careful! You could take an eye out with that thing!” he’d shouted, to raucous applause and splashing from Yoochun-hyung, while Yunho-hyung startled and blushed and tripped for a second time, this time with the added bonus of almost splinters.

Only--no.

It’s because Changmin’s the youngest, since he drew the long straw, and totally didn’t deserve to be disrespected like this.

He supposes he ought to be glad they went back to their bunglow before pestering a manger-hyung for measuring tape, of all things. He supposes he ought to be glad that manager-hyung handed the thing over and left, no questions asked, since their staff had all retreated into the second bedroom half an hour ago, when it became clear none of them were feeling the effects of the alcohol, and appeared to even be having a second wind.

This was why they decided to go skinny dipping to begin with.

Changmin sighs, twisting the measuring tape between two fingers. He hopes they burn it afterwards, or at the least, make up a story about how it was lost at sea--anything to avoid _returning_ it to a stylist-noona. Nobody deserves that, a stylist-noona most of all. Nobody deserve to use something that’s gone near TVXQ’s dicks. Because it’s going to. Because that’s what they’re doing, apparently, because skinny dipping is too easy, and Yunho-hyung tripped and gave them all a show.

“Changmin-ah!” It’s Junsu-hyung, the mastermind, who breaks the silence. He looks unfairly pleased about the entire situation. “What are you waiting for?”

‘For the ground to swallow me whole’ isn’t an acceptable answer, Changmin realizes, so he takes a deep breath and drops his towel. His bandmates are thankfully silent; no one shouts, no one whistles, no one--Changmin looks around nervously before he can help himself--stares awkwardly down at Changmin’s bare dick. It’s good. That’s good. Changmin’s glad. Or… maybe not. Maybe the silence is worse, Changmin thinks, a he takes hold of his flaccid cock, brandishes the measuring tape, and bends to measure. He marks the end spot with a thumb, face on fire, then stands. “Erm--”

“Should we have one person do everyone?” says Junsu-hyung says suddenly, making Changmin grateful for the fact that he released his cock beforehand, because his hands tighten into nervous, clawing fists and he nearly jumps out of his skin.

“What?” he sputters. “No--”

“Junsu-yah,” Jaejoong-hyung says, the most drunk of them all. “Don’t be weird. That’s weird.”

“It’s weird,” Yoochun-hyung agrees. “Super weird.”

“It’s not that weird,” Junsu-hyung mutters under his breath. Then, he raises his voice louder. “It’s--science!” He says it half stilted, like the word came to him through a drunken fog.

Changmin thinks it probably did and then wishes once again that the drunken fog had shipwrecked _all_ of Junsu-hyung’s ideas, dick measuring contests very much included.

“Because we’re doing this for science,” says Yunho-hyung, with a  conciliatory eye roll in Changmin’s direction.

Changmin would be comforted by the action, if he wasn’t naked and scrawling down his dick length on a piece of paper with a mildly terrifying drawing of a rooster on it. Yunho-hyung drew it, pink cheeked and embarrassed, but just drunk enough to hand it over. The rest of them were just drunk enough to use it for the official scoring sheet.

Changmin’s measurements go down next to a hastily written ‘Chwang.’ An innocent numeral that could be their inseams, for all the unaware would know, or something even more mundane.

Junsu-hyung has finished arguing the merits of designating a single dick-measurer--a _dick measurer_ , Changmin thinks somewhat hysterically--and has gestured Yoochun-hyung forward for his go.

“Can I have my towel back, Hyung?” Changmin says at the same time, reaching for where Jaejoong-hyung has them all draped over one arm.

“Don’t you dare!” shouts Junsu-hyung, and the next few minutes are devoted to the two of them arguing about who’s the eldest and who’s allowed to call them in banmal, blah blah blah.

Yoochun-hyung finishes with the tape, tongue poking between his front teeth, but everyone is too busy fighting and spectating to react.

Changmin hands him the paper listlessly, still unfortunately naked.

“I was _born before you,_ Junsu-yah!” Jaejoong-hyung is shouting, as if anyone could forget.

“Yeah, well, I thought we were family!” Junsu-hyung shouts back.

“You call Junho Junho-hyung!”

“I do not! He’s younger!”

“I’ll just--” tries Yunho-hyung, stepping forward to lower his own towel and take the measuring tape from Yoochun-hyung.

“You’re going last,” Junsu-hyung and Jaejoong-hyung chorus, turning in unison to glower their leader into submission, argument forgotten in the face of a common enemy.

Jaejoong-hyung’s eyes narrow. “Yoochunnie, I see you adding zeroes. There’s no way your dick is a hundred centimeters long--”

“Your mom would know,” fires back Yoochun-hyung, and ducks when Jaejoong-hyung lobs the towels at him.

“It’s okay, Yoochun-ah,” he says, stepping forward proudly to take the measuring tape and drop the remaining towel from around his own hips. “It’s not your fault you’re not an alpha--”

“Oh, gross, Jaejoong-hyung--stop talking about your _knot_ ,” complains Junsu-hyung, even as his eyes zero in on the appendage in question like it’s going to spontaneously expand sans arousal or omega pheromones or anything. Changmin really doesn’t want to apply his pornography and also SM mandated sex ed knowledge to Jaejoong-hyung’s _anything_ , let alone his fucking knot.

He doesn’t cover his eyes, just stares at the ceiling for the time it takes for Jaejoong-hyung to measure.

“Huh,” Yoochun-hyung says finally, after a pause. “You were saying?”

Changmin looks back down.

“Shut up, Yoochun,” snaps Jaejoong-hyung, flushing.

Changmin blinks, confused. “Huh?”

“Shut up,” Jaejoong-hyung says again, as Junsu-hyung takes his turn.

“You’re winning,” Yoochun-hyung explains, tilting the paper so that Changmin can see. “You’re bigger--”

“It’s stupid. I’m bigger erect--”

Changmin feels nervous laughter bubbling up in his throat but somehow manages to swallow it and hold it together as Junsu-hyung writes down his own measurements with a smug look. “There,” he says. “Sorry, Changmin.”

Changmin shakes his head. “No problem,” he says faintly. “It’s fine.” He swallows. “I’m still growing,” he adds, because alcohol and bad decisions and lack of blood flow to the brain. “I haven’t even presented yet.” He licks his lips, thinks, in for a penny-- “Unlike Jaejoong-hyung--” in for a pound--

“Oh, fuck off, I’m bigger hard,” repeats Jaejoong-hyung, eyes flashing. “And my knot’s--”

“ _Please stop talking about your knot, Jaejoong-hyung!”_ Junsu-hyung shouts. “ _Nobody cares!_ ”

Jaejoong-hyung looks down at where Junsu-hyung’s drawn a crown over his initials, smug and proud and practically radiating excitement. “Really?”

“You’re just jealous that Changminnie is bigger than you,” Junsu-hyung says brightly. “He’s a baby. He’s still growing. He’s not even presented yet.”

Jaejoong-hyung gnashes his teeth together and his left eye twitches.

“Could we not call Changmin a baby when we’re in the process of measuring his dick, Junsu-yah?” says Yunho-hyung finally, tone pained. “And--ah. Sorry.”

He takes the paper, writes down his own measurements, and squirms.

As one, the rest of TVXQ stare down at the number, conversations gone dry.

“Um,” Yunho-hyung says, fingers hovering around his inseam with the measuring tape. “I mean--” He breaks, off, measuring again.

Changmin stares down at the stretch of tape, at Yunho-hyung’s strategically placed fingers, at the flush of the head of his cock.

“Sorry?” Yunho-hyung says again. He almost sounds guilty.  

Changmin looks back at the cock sheet, at the set of numbers, verifying their accuracy.

 “Damn,” Yoochun-hyung says finally.

“You were saying about alphas being bigger than betas?” Junsu-hyung adds smugly, taking turns smirking and grinning at Jaejoong-hyung and Yunho-hyung.

“For the last time--”

“You’re bigger hard. We heard,” the rest of them shout back.

“Look, why don’t we just measure again--” Changmin starts to continue, then stops himself, horrified, when no one else keeps speaking.

Junsu-hyung stares at him with a maniacal look in his eye.

Yoochun-hyung purses his lips.

Yunho-hyung just smiles, like they’re trained.

“Why don’t we just measure again what, Changminnie?” says Junsu-hyung, voice more than a little deranged.

“How much did you have?” Changmin tries to say, but to no heed.

“Why don’t we just measure again when everyone’s hard? Good idea,” says Junsu-hyung, answering his own question.

“Yeah, no,” protests Changmin.

“I think that’s even weirder, to be honest,” points out Yoochun-hyung.

“Can I have a towel?” asks Yunho-hyung, very wisely ignoring all of them. He reaches out and takes the lot from Yoochun-hyung before anyone can respond, then hands one to Changmin. He grins. “Here.”

Changmin takes it, sheepish and thankful rolled into one. “I’m drunk,” he feels like he should say, apologetic. “Sorry--”

“It’s fine.” Yunho-hyung’s cheeks are pink and his eyes are sparkling. “It was my fault to begin with--”

“It’s settled.” Junsu-hyung and Jaejoong-hyung turn in unison to face Changmin and Yunho-hyung, Jaejoong-hyung’s eyes lighting on Yoochun-hyung and frowning when he sees that he’s relinquished the towels.

“We’ll use the bathroom,” Junsu-hyung continues. “But come out after.” He pauses, then snickers. “Or before, actually,” he amends, giggling.

Yoochun-hyung laughs as well, and high fives him.

“We’ll measure out here,” Junsu-hyung says. “Otherwise there could be cheating.” He gives Jaejoong-hyung a once over as he speaks, but stares down Yunho-hyung and Changmin as well. Like Changmin cheated. He came in third--solidly middle of the pack. If anyone had cheated it would have been Yunho-hyung, but they saw the proof themselves, watched him hold his cock and the ruler and double check.

“It’d be weird if we did it out here,” Junsu-hyung finishes, as if he’s reciting the weather.

Changmin wonders briefly how he came to this, how he went from fifteen years old playing badminton outside his school, to being eighteen, drunk and not at all legally so (Manager-hyung had turned a blind eye, since the MV was done, and it was their last night in Bora Bora), and being shoved into a bungalow bathroom with instructions to rub one out for the purpose of determining who had the biggest dick in TVXQ.

He comes up blank.

Something went wrong, in between.

“Changmin-ah!” says Jaejoong-hyung, interrupting Changmin’s introspection. “What’s taking you so long?”

There’s giggling, then the sounds of slapping, and roughhousing and Yunho-hyung saying, “You’re all idiots,” in a tone that’s dry as bone, and should not have Changmin’s cock jumping in his hand.

He’s been holding it since the door shut behind him, fisting it loosely while staring at his expression in the bathroom mirror, shell-shocked, but this is the first time he’s aware--first time he really notices.

Changmin looks down at the measuring tape in his other hand and tries not to think about how the last person who had it was Yunho-hyung. How the last thing it touched was Yunho-hyung’s dick.

“Just think of boobs,” says Yoochun-hyung helpfully. “Like. What’s her face? Gain?”

Changmin flushes, embarrassed, but wraps his hand more solidly around his cock to thoughts of Han Gain.

“Changminnie likes Gain-noona, right?” Yoochun-hyung continues loudly. “Or was it Jun Jihyun?”

“No, you dumbass, that’s Yunho-hyung--”

“Don’t call Yoochun-hyung a dumbass--”

“Don’t call me a dumbass--”

“Shut up, all of you, you’re killing the mood and I’m not even the one jerking off,” interrupts Junsu-hyung, loud enough to make Changmin jump.

He doesn’t claw his own dick off this time either, though.

From outside the bathroom, there’s silence.

Changmin swallows, more nervous than before, and still not all the way hard. He bites his lower lip, but gives himself a stroke, or two, and then keeps going, because the sooner he gets it over with, the _sooner he gets it over with_.

“Are you okay, Changmin?” Jaejoong-hyung says finally. “Is he too drunk?” He’s trying to whisper, talking to the rest of the group at a volume that Changmin is certain he thinks is too low to hear, but isn’t really at all. “I heard you can’t get hard if you’re too drunk--”

“Changminnie only had two shots,” Yunho-hyung offers, the only one speaking at normal volume.

“Yeah, but he’s not legal.”

“Ah.” Yunho-hyung appears to be mulling that over. “Changminnie. Fighting!”

Changmin would hate him, but Changmin’s too busy finally getting hard. Turns out, he’s just enough of an exhibitionist that he’s not at all bothered by the praise, by the encouragement, by Yunho-hyung, standing outside the bathroom door with the rest of their band.

“Yeah, that’s actually weird, Yunho-hyung,” Yoochun-hyung is in the middle of saying when Changmin opens the door with his head held high and measuring tape pulled taught.

They all gather around to look, necks angled low to see.

Changmin stares straight ahead, cheeks on fire.

“My turn,” Junsu-hyung decides, and grabs the measuring tape out of Changmin’s hands--but not his hard, naked dick, thank fuck--and slams the door behind him.

Changmin updates their scoresheet still without looking at anyone, wondering idly if the information that he’s at least somewhat of a shower is going to ever be useful in his adult life. When he finishes, he finds Yunho-hyung standing in front of him holding Changmin’s abandoned swim trunks. They’re dry--they stripped off well before the sun set, well before deciding to skinny dip.

Changmin takes them with grateful, shaking hands. “Thanks, Hyung.”

Yunho-hyung smiles. “I’m assuming this is what having brother is like,” he says. “I’ve never been happier to have baby sisters.”

“Even though Jihye-noona’s Boa-noona in training?” Changmin says, with an answering smile.

“Jihye,” Yunho-hyung corrects gently, since the first time Changmin met Yunho-hyung’s sister she was ecstatic to have someone her age talk to, and immediately insisted on banmal.

“Jihye,” Changmin tries out, feeling even more like family.

Yunho-hyung keeps smiling. He’s got a towel draped and knotted around his hips and Changmin can’t help but stare at the jut of bone peeking out there. Yunho-hyung’s thin, but they all are, even though Jaejoong-hyung and Yoochun-hyung at least have started putting on post-presentation muscle. Junsu-hyung is still caught somewhere in between puberty and adult beta; Yunho-hyung’s the same; Changmin’s tall and still growing.

“Yeah,” Changmin says, circling back to Yunho’s original thought about brothers. Only having baby sisters, even the thought of them naked is a solid ‘no’ from him.

“I’d ask Heechul-hyung his opinion, if I wasn’t worried about oversharing.”

Changmin grins. “Heechul-hyung doesn’t have brothers.”

“Donghae, then,” concedes Yunho-hyung. “And Hyukjae--maybe then we’d have Jaejoong’s answer about alphas always having bigger dicks--”

“What are we talking about?” says Junsu-hyung, coming out of the bathroom looking smug and flushed and dumb.

“You’re winning,” Jaejoong-hyung says, shoving Yoochun-hyung towards the bathroom with an eyeroll.

“Ha,” crows Junsu-hyung.

“We were saying this is what it must be like to have brothers,” says Yunho-hyung, before the fighting can start up again. He turns his sunniest smile on Junsu-hyung.

The other crosses to take the paper for Changmin, entirely unbothered by his nudity. “Oh, absolutely,” he says. “And Junho and I are twins, so we share everything.” He grins, like he’s going to tell them a dirty secret, and Yunho-hyung shoves a towel into his face.

“Yah, Junsu-yah,” he says. “I’ve met your brother.”

“I should hope so. You lived with us,” says Junsu-hyung, muffled by the terrycloth.

“Yeah, well, forgive me if I’d like to keep some secrets between Junho and me.”

Junsu-hyung pulls the towel down and covers his dick, tongue stuck out and eyes dancing. But whatever it is he’d been about to say is swallowed up by Yoochun-hyung emerging, face red, only to be declared somehow _smaller_.

“Go again. Do you need help?” Jaejoong-hyung smirks.

Yoochun-hyung flees back into the bathroom immediately. “No, God, Jaejoong-hyung, _No!_ ”

“Now, that’s weird,” Junsu-hyung tells Changmin and Yunho-hyung conspiratorially, waggling his eyebrows. “Who’s Yoochun-hyung’s celebrity crush? Yoochun-hyung! Just think of your celebrity crush!”

Yoochun-hyung re-emerges moments later looking embarrassed. His measurements haven’t changed, give or take a few millimeters.

“That’s too bad, Yoochunnie,” Jaejoong-hyung says, patting Yoochun-hyung on the head and grinning when that gets him a shove. “It’s okay. Don’t worry! I’m sure you’re still above average.” He grins, thieves the measuring tape, and closes the door behind himself.

“Can we look that up?” Junsu-hyung says, frowning. “The national average?”

“Dick size?” Changmin manages, _still_ not entirely sure how this is happening.

“Yeah.” Jusnu-hyung pulls out his phone like that’ll help.

Yoochun-hyung does as well. “Sure--”

“No,” Yunho-hyung says. “Not on the dorm computer.”

Junsu-hyung rolls his eyes, and even Changmin thinks about the porn he’s watched on the dorm computer and thinks Yunho-hyung’s making a mountain out of a molehill.

“Yunho-yah,” Jaejoong-hyung announces, back from the bathroom with a grin. “Your turn.”

“Dude, Jaejoong-hyung, is that normal?” Yoochun-hyung says, gaze fixed jokingly on the base of Jaejoong-hyung’s dick.

Changmin stares at the bungalow ceiling and counts very slowly to five.

“Don’t be jealous, Yoochun-ah. I’m sure plenty of girls want a beta--”

“I mean, you’re more likely to get them pregnant than Hyung is,” Changmin can’t help but say. Thinking about the pure biology of the situations--alphas having more semen; end of story--mostly because of the alcohol swimming in his bloodstream, bypassing organ walls, leeching into his brain.

Mostly he’s trying to distract himself from where he can see Yunho-hyung, still wearing the towel, as he makes his way into the bathroom and shuts the door. 

There’s no way Changmin can hear it close from how far away he is, but he swears he does anyway, swears he can hear the pant of Yunho-hyung’s breaths, hear the pound of Yunho-hyung’s heart, taste the tang of Yunho-hyung’s nerves.

He moves closer to Jaejoong-hyung and the door just so he can harass Jaejoong-hyung. Herding Yoochun-hyung away is just happenstance; leaving Junsu-hyung frowning about if they want to risk career suicide over the national average dick size is a coincidence.

“Hyung, hi,” Changmin says, and drapes himself all over Jaejoong-hyung, even though he’s hot and sweaty and still flushed from his own stint in the bathroom. He hadn’t even been able to wash his hands, since he had to come immediately out, and not come period, he thinks with a sick sort of humor. Actually, none of them have, forced out of the bathroom following the same pattern, and that should bother Changmin.

He should be more grossed out than he is.

He plasters himself more solidly to Jaejoong-hyung’s side.

“Ugh, Changmin-ah, you stink,” Jaejoong-hyung complains. Given he’s the one member of TVXQ with a more than decently working Jacobson’s organ, Changmin takes great in pleasure in just how sour he sounds.

It’s not like he’s done it on purpose; sloped himself sweating and smelling and festering on top of the only person in the room who might be able to catch a whiff of Yunho-hyung in the bathroom, fisting and pulling and tugging himself to full hardness in the name of dumb, masculine competition. That would be ridiculous. Changmin would never. He just wants to see the tally, wants to lean over Jaejoong-hyung and dig his chin into his shoulder and put his cheek right up in Jaejoong-hyung’s face, get his scent glands all up in Jaejoong-hyung’s nose, as he squints down at their less than stellar scribbles to see that Yoochun-hyung is bringing up the rear behind Jaejoong-hyung, and Junsu-hyung has Changmin beat by half a centimeter.

And like. Changmin’s still growing. If he cared, which he doesn’t, he wouldn’t be bothered.

Yunho-hyung comes out of the bathroom, shuffling forward, and Changmin stays pressed up against Jaejoong-hyung for that measuring as well, because he was there to begin with, and nothing more. 

Yunho-hyung is crowned biggest dick in TVXQ, complete with an impromptu ceremony and cries for him to do a victory dance, which he does grudgingly with heat high on both cheeks. 

Later, Junsu-hyung wrestles the national average out of less than impressed Woojin-hyung, who takes the news of their evening with infinite patience and also the insistence that they not only dispose of the tape measure but also to buy their staff a new one. 

Changmin tells himself he’s disappointed only because he’s dead center and pretty much average, and not because Yunho-hyung ends up in the front seat on their ride to the airport. Then he gets on their plane, sits next to Yunho-hyung on that plane, and fights a headache when Junsu-hyung won’t shut up about sexually transmitted diseases.

All the way home, he reads Korean manhwa and Japanese manga and doesn’t at all notice how despite being the least second-least hungover of them all, Yunho-hyung looks flushed and uncomfortable.

“I’m fine, Changminnie,” Yunho-hyung says when Changmin gives in and asks. “I’ll sleep as soon as we get home.” He smiles, bright and people pleasing. “It’ll be okay, Changmin-ah.”

That should be comforting. That should be a dismissal, at least.

Changmin’s not comforted.

Changmin refuses to be dismissed.

Changmin’s even more on edge, only he can’t tell why. All he knows is his skin itches, and the roof of his mouth aches, and he can’t settle, even though of all five of them he had zero hangover.

“I’m probably just tired,” Yunho-hyung says. “Or maybe I ate something funny. I’ll be better once we’re home.”

“It’s colder back home,” Changmin mutters, but watches him fall asleep anyway. For some reason, all he wants is to take Yunho-hyung by the hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to everyone who contributed to the MOST IMPORTANT TVXQ ranking (and also Suju cause even tho that’s not in this chapter; needed to know).
> 
> Share this fic: [Tumblr](https://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/184586878860/my-heart-froze-in-early-winter-author-zimriya) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1123755066387783680).


	3. stiffen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) There's a ton of Changkyu in this so posting it today feels.... apt. 
> 
> 2) If you haven't, check out the latest update of the kid fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15827652/chapters/47062495). Sorry this update took so long. (But just know. Much thought and feelings about this verse and happened of last week so. Chapter four is actually done!)

#### 03\. Stiffen

* * *

Changmin handles his first rut and alpha presentation about as well as is to be expected, given his track record. This is to say, Changmin handles his first rut and alpha presentation with zero grace and negative dignity.

First, he’s horny… all the time.

This was hell in the lead up to popping his first knot, but only got worse after. He’s twitchy, quick to anger, and yeah, he has a somewhat decent excuse (he had to tell Manager-hyung the day after it happened for contractual ‘SM provides his doctor’ reasons, and no way Jaejoong-hyung wasn’t going to smell it on Changmin a mile away), but no number of half-remembered wet dreams or pillow humpings manage to ease the simmer in his belly, or get him even remotely off… or interested in going to work, of all things.

It’s May, they’re in between tour dates and countries, and Changmin’s right on schedule for his eighteenth heat season, fresh off his nineteenth birthday. 

He still feels embarrassed. 

Manager-hyung gives him a congratulatory back slap, Jaejoong-hyung was, apparently, expecting this for weeks, and the rest of them just smile and seem happy to know their youngest isn’t a kid anymore. They throw him a horrible party and make him a cake covered in photos of Changmin’s own damn _face_ , and Changmin just kind of wants to put Jaejoong-hyung in a blender. 

Most likely this is because Jaejoong-hyung is another alpha. But then, so are Heechul-hyung and Jungsoo-hyung, and Changmin doesn’t want to rip their heads off for simply existing when he thinks about or looks at photos of them. He doesn’t even have the urge to attack their staff, aside fromYunho-hyung’s favorite manager, and ignoring the fact that Jaejoong-hyung’s at his most annoying after choreography practice, when they’re all sweaty and covered in the stench of Yunho-hyung’s perfectionism. 

It’s probably because Jaejoong-hyung just lives with Changmin, unlike Heechul-hyung and Jungsoo-hyung. He’s a threat, or something.

Changmin doesn’t know.

Changmin hasn’t had a decent orgasm since popping his first knot; he’s maybe not entirely capable of higher thought function at present. 

Which is probably why he goes to Jaejoong-hyung about Yunho-hyung’s secret omega girlfriend, honestly. Throws the question out there, not at all what he wanted to be saying, but what he’s been thinking since he caught a whiff of what had to be her on Yunho-hyung’s clothes two days ago at the presentation party. 

“Jaejoong-hyung, do you know anything about Yunho-hyung’s girlfriend?” Changmin asks, because Jaejoong-hyung is there, and Changmin’s hormones are fucking with everything. 

Jaejoong-hyung is startled into silence, tirade about the state of Japanese rock long forgotten. “Yunho’s what?” he says finally, staring at Changmin with wide eyes.

They’re alone in the car, Changmin having grabbed the keys from Woojin-hyung when he realized he’d left his headphones in between the seat cushions, and Jaejoong-hyung having followed him back into the van because they were mid-discussion of the state of Japanese rock. 

Changmin made short work of grabbing the headphones, wires coiled into an unfortunate mess, but too aware of the fact that the rest of the band and staff are all waiting for them just outside the AVEX building, tucked away into an inconspicuous corner. Not that anyone really cares, this early into their Japanese career. 

“Yunho-hyung’s girlfriend,” Changmin says again, since Jaejoong-hyung clearly isn’t going to say more. “Yunho-hyung does have a girlfriend, right?” It’s a rhetorical question--Changmin _smelled her_ \--but he asks it anyway, since far be it for him to act like he’s owed anything from his bandmates. If they want to keep secrets--if Yunho-hyung wants to date omega _women_ \--that’s not Changmin’s business, if they say so.

Jaejoong-hyung keeps staring at Changmin like he’s said something truly ridiculous, like, the sky is green or the sun is… also green (it is; Changmin took middle school science; also, he’s a nerd), or Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim is actually a secret beta. 

“Doesn’t he?” Changmin says, thinking back to how he’d hugged Yunho-hyung at Changmin’s presentation party, and definitely smelled omega pheromones on him. It had to be a girlfriend, since it wasn’t Donghae-hyung or any of the other omega people at the company Changmin knows. They’re few and far between, and Changmin’s always prided himself on having the second-best nose in the band, after Jaejoong-hyung the savant who baffled the scientists himself. Sure, Changmin’s not seen Donghae-hyung since Super Junior debuted and TVXQ started working actively in Japan, but Changmin’s almost certain it’s not him.

So it has to be a girlfriend.

Yunho-hyung’s secret, omega girlfriend. If any of them know anything about her, it’s Jaejoong-hyung.

“Doesn’t he?” Changmin says again, more desperately this time.

Jaejoong-hyung shrugs. “Dunno.” For all his posturing and play-acting like Changmin was altering the color of the cosmos, the other doesn’t seem all that bothered by Changmin’s reveal. “I mean, it’s not like any of us are virgins, so…” Jaejoong-hyung trails off, shrugging again. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a girlfriend.” 

For some reason the confirmation is not as comforting as Changmin thought it would be when he made the initial leap from ‘Yunho-hyung smells like an omega’ to ‘Yunho-hyung’s _got an omega girlfriend_.’ Changmin will chalk that up to the fact that Jaejoong-hyung’s not really confirming anything; he’s just speaking out of his ass, as usual.

“You’re not a virgin, are you, Changmin?” asks Jaejoong-hyung with absolutely nothing held back.

Changmin startles, blushing. “No,” he says, lying through his teeth. He knows nobody believes him since he’s only been an alpha for two days, and who’d have slept with him before that, idol or no idol. He says it anyway since he has his pride, and Jaejoong-hyung takes it with a nod, because he’s been there too, and he’s kind.

“Uh huh.”

Or not.

“Are you sure you’re not projecting?”

Definitely not.

“I know you’re still upset about never having been kissed…”

Changmin hates that line of variety and hates Jaejoong-hyung for bringing it up in the first place.

“… But Yunho-hyung’s had girlfriends before. Like, before he even met us, and everything.”

Changmin chews viciously on the inside of his cheek, no entirely sure why that pisses him off, but annoyed all the same. Maybe it’s because that story featured Heechul-hyung and his long hair? And made, frankly, very little sense, as well as screamed stereotyping and poor taste all around. Because, really? Yunho-hyung is a catch; so what if his friends don’t get haircuts. 

“Of course he’s kissed people,” Jaejoong-hyung continues, not really making much sense, but still going all the same. “As have I. And Junsu. And Yoochun. Just not you--”

“Yes, thank you for that reminder, Jaejoong-hyung, really,” says Changmin quickly, cutting him off before he can go on. “We get it.”

Jaejoong-hyung looks around the van like anyone else is there because he’s a dickhead.

“You’ve all kissed people and it was lovely,” finishes Changmin, embarrassed. He clicks the van locked and unlocked a few times, listening the tumblers tumble and the mechanized locks slide home and then free. He can’t see their staff or their band, but he knows they’re out there waiting. 

“I wouldn’t say lovely,” Jaejoong-hyung says, putting a hand on the seat back in front of Changmin’s face, leaning in so they’re nearly forehead to forehead suddenly.

Changmin shifts awkwardly where he’d been half-knelt, half-seated on the upholstery. 

“More like. I don’t know--” Jaejoong-hyung pauses for effect. “Wet.”

“Thank you so much for that image, Hyung,” says Changmin dryly. “You’ve really sold it for me, kissing. Wet.” He shifts to get out of the van, but before he can do so, Jaejoong-hyung’s hands come out of nowhere and fasten themselves to each of Changmin’s cheeks. “What? Hyung? Jaejoong-hyung--”

Jaejoong-hyung kisses him, a quick, undramatic peck right in the middle of Changmin’s confusion, and then pulls back as quick as he’d come, smug. “There,” he says. “Now you’ve had your first kiss, too.” He grins. “And it wasn’t wet at all.” 

Changmin’s finding it hard to speak, let alone hear.

“Now there’s no need for your worry about Yunho-hyung’s non-existent girlfriends,” Jaejoong-hyung finishes, pleased as you like.

Changmin’s too stunned to even force the issue about Yunho-hyung’s totally existent omega girlfriend, who he totally smelled, and totally didn’t hallucinate, and it wasn’t Changmin’s _fault_ Jaejoong-hyung wasn’t as good of friends with Yunho-hyung as he must have assumed, since he didn’t know.

Changmin’s too shocked to do more than stay frozen in place.

“Changmin?” Jaejoong-hyung finally sounds concerned. 

Changmin would be concerned too: he’s suddenly finding it hard to breathe, suddenly finding it hard to speak, suddenly finding himself near to tears.

He’s.

That’s.

That’s not _fair_.

That can’t _count_.

That was nothing, not more than a few seconds of contact--not more than a _second_ of contact, and certainly nothing like the movies or the books or the gossip overheard at variety shows, at celebrity watering holes--what Changmin was promised, when he turned nineteen, popped a knot, and called home to tell his mom he was officially a Shim alpha. 

It doesn’t count. It’s like, what Changmin got as a kid from his parents when he was a baby. It’s like what his relatives give him when Changmin goes home for the holidays, albeit on the mouth instead of the cheek and or ear. 

It can’t be Changmin’s first kiss.

Kim Jaejoong cannot have stolen Changmin’s _first kiss_.

“Are you alright?” Jaejoong-hyung says again, making like he’s going to touch Changmin some more, and Changmin shoves away like he’s been burned. 

“What?” he says. “I mean, no. I mean, yes. I mean--” He stumbles, heart pounding, and somehow gets the door unlocked and open. “We should get back--” He’s angry, that has to be it. His cheeks are flushed and his heart is pounding and his eyes don’t feel wet but they do feel painful, like any second Changmin could be sobbing he’s so--mad. 

Changmin’s mad.

“That wasn’t really your first kiss, was it?” Jaejoong-hyung says, sounding amused. 

Changmin makes a helpless noise, nearly incandescent with rage (--Disappointment--misery--the first person I love after this won’t get to have my first kiss anymore, I’m ruined, I’m broken--despair--) 

Jaejoong-hyung blinks. “Oh,” he says, then smirks. “ _Oh_.”

Changmin practically parkours free of him and out of the van. 

“That really was your first kiss, then,” Jaejoong-hyung says, cruelly. “Well. At least it wasn’t _wet_ \--” 

Changmin goes speedwalking to join the rest of their band members with white-hot devastation licking down the back of his neck and splashing high across both cheeks, tipping both his ears.

“Changmin?” Yunho-hyung says when he sees him, looking at Changmin with concern and trepidation. It’s no different than what he’s been doing since Changmin’s presentation party--further proof, no doubt, of the truth of his secret omega girlfriend, since he’s clearly worried that Changmin’s figured it out. For some reason it just makes Changmin want to cry more, the thought of Yunho-hyung’s secret omega girlfriend. Yunho-hyung probably had his first kiss normally, not with the secret girlfriend of today, but with his first one. Back before he was a beta. Lots of people do that, nowadays. People even have sex before presentation; Changmin’s not an idiot; he knows things. 

He hands Woojin-hyung the keys mechanically, shaking with the breadth of his feelings. 

“Are you alright?” Yunho-hyung says, and Changmin’s mouth hurts from keeping it together.

“Hyung. _Kissed_ me,” he manages, refusing to look at anyone, because if he does--if he sees Junsu-hyung and Yoochun-hyung high-fiving Jaejoong-hyung and watches Yunho-hyung staring earnestly back at him he’s going to lose it--he’ll cry, he’ll cry, he’ll cry. 

“He just looked cute,” Jaejoong-hyung taunts, mostly to Yoochun-hyung and Junsu-hyung. He’s still smirking and generally having a good time. 

Changmin hates him. No way he doesn’t know. No way he can’t smell it on Changmin. No way he’s unaware.

“You need to stop this,” Yunho-hyung says, sounding disappointed. He looks between the two of them with a frown, leader face on at a hundred percent. 

Changmin wraps himself up in that disapproval, buoys it around himself like a lifeline, and dares to smile menacingly towards Jaejoong-hyung.

There’s a frown, a tiny flicker of something in the older boy’s eyes that could be regret, but very quickly it’s covered up in bravo and playacting. Jaejoong-hyung will probably apologize to Changmin after this. He always does, especially after they’ve been on camera and their managers have been pressing them for more fight content. Changmin would normally be okay with that much, would take the loss with grace and dignity and resignation, since he’s the baby.

The snarling mess of hormones churning through his system won’t let him.

“You too,” Yunho-hyung adds quickly.

Changmin swivels to look at him, ear ringing. “Hyung.”

Yunho-hyung looks between the two of them with his disappointment barely masked. “Both of you,” he continues. “You’re a _distraction_.”

And Changmin hates him, hates how his stomach goes in knots in its haste to get him belly up in submission. His palms go sweaty and his mind goes reeling and he’s back in the bathrooms of the SM building, eating lunch alone because Yunho-sunbaenim looked right through him. It’s ridiculous and it’s unfair and Yunho-hyung doesn’t even _know_ , just keeps staring between Changmin and Jaejoong-hyung with a downturned mouth.

How dare he.

And how dare Changmin’s stupid, people-pleasing heart want to make everything better. To be better, like this is at all his fault. Jaejoong-hyung’s been relentless since Changmin popped his first knot. Teasing, and tormenting, and generally making a nuisance in between schedules because Changmin was one of the boys now, and had more to learn than just singing and Japanese rock. Changmin’s given as good as he’s got, but Chagnmin hadn’t started it. Changmin hadn’t been chest-beating simply for the similarity of their genitalia. 

Changmin hadn’t _stolen someone’s first kiss_.

Changmin swallows, head held high with pride, as Yunho-hyung makes his way towards the practice rooms, speech done. 

Yoochun-hyung and Junsu-hyung follow, clearly underestimating the severity of the situation and shoving playfully into each other as they go. 

Changmin trails Jaejoong-hyung, mouth a furious hard line, heart a frightened, fluttering bird. They’re practicing new choreography today. Changmin’s always been good at that, picking up the new stuff faster than the rest of them, even though he’s not as coordinated as Junsu-hyung or as fluid as Yunho-hyung. It’s Jaejoong-hyung who struggles, can’t quite figure out how to move seamlessly, and always looks like he’s thinking too hard on a stage. 

Changmin can survive this practice. Changmin is a professional.

\--

“You. I mean, we barely know each other?” says Changmin’s new best friend, Cho ‘I’m ’88 line too’ Kyuhyun. They’re alone in a corner of the dorm, excused from socialization by virtue of being the babies, and passing around a half empty bottle of whiskey.

Heechul-hyung brought it in celebration of Super Junior’s official debut performance combined with TVXQ’s successful performance at the World Cup friendly, and Kyuhyun and Changmin had stolen it given they, one, lived in the dorm, and two, had performed for Super Junior’s debut performance and at the World Cup friendly respectively. 

Changmin might not be sure how long they’ve been drinking nor if the bottle was half empty when he thieved it out from Sungmin-hyung’s nose, but he’s definitely not drunk, he thinks he should mention. “Kyuhyun-ah,” he says, sloshing the leftover alcohol around the bottle as he gestures at Kyuhyun with it. “Why don’t you want to be my friend?”

Kyuhyun’s eyes widen. “No--I,” he says, grabbing the whiskey bottle from Changmin with a nervous glance back towards their rambunctious bandmates. “Of course I want to be your friend, Changmin.” He looks around helplessly, almost like he wishes he’d taken Kibum-hyung up on the offer to retire early. 

“Good,” Changmin says loftily. “Now. Advise me.”

Across the room, Yunho-hyung throws his head back and laughs at something Donghae-hyung’s said, joyous and unrestrained and nothing like he’s been with Changmin lately. Hyukjae-hyung sits silently beside them, feet tucked under him at an angle so that his sweats pull up and reveal the span of pale, blemished skin.

Changmin’s seen the bitemark, of course, but it’s still always a surprise to see it so plainly. He’s still half-expecting Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim himself to come ziplining into their dorm to take Donghae-hyung and Hyukjae-hyung out for daring to find love at barely twenty-one, only twenty. 

“I--you don’t think we’re moving too fast, do you?” says Kyuhyun.

Changmin stares at him.

“Right.” Kyuhyun swallows like he wants the whiskey, but thinks better of it, holding it out of Changmin’s reach and licking his lips a little frantically. “So… you. Forgive me if I get this wrong, but you think Yunho-sunbaenim has a girlfriend because… he hugged you?” His voice goes very high at the end and the grip he has on the alcohol looks painful, fingers gone white where he’s clutching it like it’ll save him without him drinking it.

Changmin wonders how he could get the soju back without spilling it. “Yunho-hyung,” he starts with, since Yunho-hyung definitely doesn’t want Kyuhyun to still be calling him ‘Yunho-sunbaenim’ like they weren’t more than just trainees who passed in the hallway. They were all living together in a too small dorm with only one air conditioning unit, celebrating the fact that their lease was expiring in time for TVXQ to get their own place and Super Junior to move somewhere more permanent as a gesture of good, ‘we actually want to keep you around as a non-rotational group’ faith. 

“Right, Yunho-hyung,” Kyuhyun corrects, still holding the whiskey just out of reach. “But… hugging?”

“And not think,” Changmin says instead. “I know.”

Kyuhyun purses his lips. “Because you smelled him?” 

“Because he hugged me,” Changmin explains, eyeing his new best friend with far more assessing eyes. Now that he thinks about it, they didn’t have a lot of whiskey, and whoever they stole it from could definitely come back for it if Changmin makes a big fuss of wrestling it back. “Aren’t you an alpha?” He switches his attention form the bottle to Kyuhyun with laser focus, even though he’s having a little trouble getting his eyesight to function properly. 

Kyuhyun stares blurrily back at him. “Yes?” he nods, all three of him, before casting one last helpless look to where Kibum-hyung and Ryeowook-hyung left to sleep in the air conditioning-less bedrooms with some of the managers. 

“So, why haven’t _you_ smelled Yunho-hyung’s omega girlfriend?” Changmin says. “Duh.” He looks disdainfully down his nose at Kyuhyun.

“Um, well.” Kyuhyun pours himself a finger of whiskey and throws it back before Changmin can realize and grab the bottle. “First of all I don’t go around smelling Yunho-hyung.”

“That’s good,” Changmin says. “If you did that, I’d have to kill you.”

Kyuhyun looks down at his empty shot glass as if it pains him, before addressing Changmin with a bright smile. “You’re sure you smelled an omega on Yunho-hyung?” 

“Yes,” Changmin says, reassessing if he really wants Kyuhyun to be his new best friend. Changmin’s too smart to have not-smart best friends, and Kyuhyun’s really taking a ridiculous amount of time to get from point a to point b. “What did you score on Jacobson’s tests?”

“Lower than you,” Kyuhyun says, with an eyeroll, even as Changmin cackles and lifts his own empty glass. “But…” He looks around quickly, before leaning in. “Are you sure you didn’t smell an omega on Yunho-hyung because--” He bites his lip. “Yunho-hyung is an omega?”

Changmin stares at him blankly for a long, still moment. “Kyuhyun-ah,” he says finally.

Kyuhyun sits up straight. “Yes?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Changmin says. “Yunho-hyung is a beta.”

Kyuhyun opens his mouth. “Right, but--”

“No buts,” Changmin says. “None at all. Assless. Assless like--chaps.”

Kyuhyun’s brow furrows at Changmin’s sudden use of English. “Are you sure you’ve had alcohol before?”

Changmin lists to the side a little bit and somehow catches himself on air, elbow knocking out awkwardly. “Oh yeah,” he says. “When we went to Bora Bora we measured dicks and everything.” 

Kyuhyun opens and closes his mouth a few times, before finally pouring Changmin some more whiskey. “Hey, Hyungs,” he says, raising his voice to be heard, but not looking away from Changmin. “Please come cut Changminnie off.”

Jaejoong-hyung disengages from the pack to do just that, thieving the whiskey bottle with unfairly nimble fingers. “You should be careful, Changmin-ah,” he says. “You don’t want to get known as a lightweight before you’re even _legal_.”

One of the manager-hyungs sits up straight and covers his ears. “La la la,” he says. “I can’t hear you talking about giving alcohol to minors!”

Jaejoong-hyung rolls his eyes, amused. 

Changmin glowers blearily up at him. “I’m not that drunk,” he says, turning quickly towards Kyuhyun to add, “my dick’s bigger than his, and Bora Bora was 2005.”

Jaejoong-hyung scowls, but Changmin totally measured the moment he had a knot and he’s finally surpassed _Junsu-hyung,_ so fucking _there_. 

“Also, you stole my first kiss.”

Heechul-hyung throws his head back and crows at that, for some reason shoving in between Yunho-hyung and Donghae-hyung, and calling them both nicknames unfit for broadcast.  

Changmin ignores them all to stare balefully up at Jaejoong-hyung.

The older man sighs. “Look. Changmin.”

“You’re really bigger than him?” Kyuhyun says consideringly, almost innocent in his delivery. 

“Yes,” Changmin says, grateful for the distraction. “Bigger than all of them, except Yunho-hyung.” He makes a face, sad to be thinking of Yunho-hyung--and his omega girlfriend--again.

Kyuhyun frowns. “Look, Chwang--”

Changmin likes that, being on a nickname basis with Kyuhyun already, but he doesn’t want to talk about this with Jaejoong-hyung here.

He looks up at Jaejoong-hyung. “Hyung--”

 “Changminnie, I’m sorry,” Jaejoong-hyung says. “About the kiss.”

Changmin blinks.

“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, when clearly you did.”

Changmin blinks some more.

“Do you forgive me?”

Changmin thinks that over.

“He’s really, really pissed, Jaejoong-hyung,” Kyuhyun says politely.

“Yes,” Changmin decides, ignoring him. 

“I’ll take it,” Jaejoong-hyung says, then, with a tiny pause, bends to hug Changmin. “But you really need to get better at holding your alcohol; you’ll give the group a bad name.”

For some reason Changmin looks towards Yunho-hyung, maybe because Donghae-hyung’s sent him into giggles again, and feels sad when the other boy doesn’t so much as glance at them.

That was his favorite part of rut, Yunho-hyung’s jealousy. Or… Changmin maybe shouldn’t call it jealousy, since that would make no sense. Yunho-hyung’s a beta with an omega girlfriend, and Changmin and Jaejoong-hyung are both alphas. Still, he misses the glances, the glares, the glowers, the telling offs.

The only thing Yunho-hyung tells them off about anymore is dancing the wrong moves or singing the wrong lines.

Changmin sighs.

Kyuhyun knocks an arm into his and cuddles close. “Changmin-ah,” he says.

“Hmm?”

“We should do this again, sometime.”

“Hmm?”

“Get drunk.” Kyuhyun grins. “Share first time stories.”

Changmin makes a face, not in the mood to rehash his virginity again.

“Make sure you don’t give TVXQ a bad name.”

Yunho-hyung laughs loudly again, head thrown back, and Heechul-hyung reaches out to pet him across the face drunkenly.

“Sure,” Changmin says, suddenly sour. “Sounds good.”

His new best friend says something else, but it’s lost in the general merriment, and Changmin’s suddenly too tired to ask him to repeat it back. Which is well and good, because it had sounded a lot like, ‘definitely not a beta; look at the way you look at him’ which makes absolutely zero sense.

\--

`Hey, Kyuhyun-ah, were you serious about wanting to be best drinking friends?` Changmin texts a few weeks later. They’ve spoken since then, of course, but this is the first time Changmin’s had a breather in between their tour schedules and their other schedules. Also, he likes to limit his texts home, as to avoid racking up phone bills and getting all of them punished for it.

`I… didn’t say that exactly, but sure?` replies Kyuhyun, after only a tiny pause. 

`Cool`, says Changmin. `Cause I have a question, but it’s a best drinking friends sort of question.`

It takes Kyuhyun significantly longer to reply this time. `There’s no way it can be worse than May twenty-third, so lay it on me.`

Changmin thinks it’s best to just be open about things like this and rip the bandaid right off. His mother’s always approached life this way, and Changmin hopes to do so as well. Maybe it’s an alpha thing. He’s not going to explore that too deeply. `What flavor lube should I buy?`

There is pregnant, long pause. 

`Well`, Kyuhyun replies slowly. `That depends.`

Changmin waits, certain his friend is about to go on, and that it’ll be either witty and variety worthy, or scathing in its terseness. 

`Why are you buying lube?`

`To practice putting things up my ass`, Changmin says, because, as mentioned, bandaids and the alpha approach to life.

Kyuhyun reads that message and then says nothing for like three minutes, so he probably regrets having read it. `Changmin. Are you drunk?`

`No`, Changmin says. `Don’t be stupid. I’m not buying the lube right now as we speak.` He’ll have to go to a store to do it, and that will involve a manager and also finesse. `This is just hypothetical. `

Kyuhyun appears to digest that as well. `I mean, I’ll bite. Hypothetically, why do you want to shove things up your ass?`

 `Well first, you seem to have so much fun with the stick up yours`, Changmin starts with. 

`Fucker`, Kyuhyun retorts. 

`But also, I figure, like, there’s no guarantee a beta would be able to take my knot, so I should just make sure I could take a beta.`

Kyuhyun’s response comes quicker this time. `So are we finally talking about the fact that you’re desperately in love with Yunho-hyung?` he says.

Changmin will admit that flinging his phone across the room is not the most dignified response he’s ever had, but Changmin is alone in the bedroom, and no one is around to see him do it. Kyuhyun is ridiculous. That’s not what’s going on. Changmin’s just concerned because Yunho-hyung having a secret girlfriend could be disastrous for the _band_. Kyuhyun needs to mind his own business and focus instead on his own band. 

By the time Changmin gets up to pick up his phone, Kyuhyun has sent him a handful of texts.

`Chwang?` he’s started with. `Chwang, are you there?` Then, when that got no response, `Chwang is that a yes?` Finally, `Chwang, if that’s a yes, don’t respond.` And damnedly, `I knew it. I’m glad you’re finally sharing your true self with me, Changmin. It’s good you’re finally talking about your boner for Yunho-hyung.`

Changmin rests the phone against his forehead for two seconds. `You asshole`, he starts with. `We’re not talking about this because it’s not true.` 

He stops, looking at his own words, and sighs. Who is Changmin kidding? Certainly not Kyuhyun. 

`You’re right, Kyuhyun-ah`, he sends. `I want to put Yunho-hyung’s beta dick up my ass.`

`CHANGMIN.`

`This is why I need you help me pick lube, Kyuhyun-ah`, Changmin keeps going, unbothered. 

`CHANGMIN.`

`Because I’m in love with Yunho-hyung.`

Kyuhyun has stopped repeating Changmin’s name but Changmin keeps going regardless, unable to stop now that he’s started.

`And I want to put his beta dick up my ass.`

Finished, Changmin stops to let that entire train of thought sink in with poor Kyuhyun, who somehow manages to gather himself enough to reply. `Right, okay, I’m glad. So strawberry? Yunho-hyung likes strawberry?`

Changmin has to give it to Kyuhyun, the man is willing to go where no one else will. He supposes that’s what happens, when you’re walking around on eggshells since everyone is older than you and none of your fans want you around. Certainly Changmin, who has bandmates only two years older, welcomes the opportunity to speak with absolutely zero filters. 

`Yunho-hyung does like strawberry`, Changmin agrees, adding strawberry flavored lube to his temporary shopping list. His manager might kill him, but his manager will buy it for him, since Changmin will play the ‘wouldn’t you rather my only sexual partner was me and my right hand, Hyung?’ card and get away with murder. 

`But dial that back a bit`, says Kyuhyun. `Why isn’t your dick going up Yunho-hyung’s ass?`

That’s a thought.

Changmin’s researched, via highly specific porn searches, and scoured the internet, in incognito mode, but hasn’t been able to say definitively if betas can take alpha knots. Of course everything’s possible with enough lube--Changmin’s watched enough porn to know that much--but still. If it’s Yunho-hyung (and it’s Yunho-hyung; Changmin’s been entertaining the thought of fucking beta men for a while now; of course it’s Yunho-hyung; how has he not realized this?), Changmin doesn’t want to leave it up to chance. And also, maybe Yunho-hyung won’t be into that.

`I can’t say for sure if a beta man can take an alpha knot`, Changmin tells Kyuhyun, nothing held back. `Conversely, alpha and beta men have been sitting on beta dicks since the Greeks. This only makes sense, Kyuhyun-ah.`

`‘Conversely,’` Kyuhyun replies. `Gosh, you sound like you’re writing an essay. Don’t. Send me one.` He doesn’t even send that in three separate texts; just puts periods in between for emphasis.

Changmin pouts. `Spoilsport.`

`Newly knighted drinking best friend`, Kyuhyun corrects. `Speaking of which, when are you next in Seoul? We need to meet up.`

Changmin, happy at the prospect of hanging out with a same-aged friend, consults TVXQ’s schedule so he can make plans.

\--

It takes Yunho-hyung hurting himself on stage in Malaysia--that idiot--and him not making a huge deal out of it until he has to be carried into the airport on their way to Japan, for Changmin to come to the conclusion foremost that Yunho-hyung is a self-sacrificing idiot, but also that Changmin is definitely, horribly in love with him.

Yunho-hyung somehow manages to keep filming schedules and variety programs with an injury that has his doctors threatening him with an inability to dance ever again, and through it all Changmin finds himself constantly torn between the desire to carry the man himself and wanting to rip the throats out of any doctor who dares tell Yunho-hyung what he can and cannot do. 

He buys the strawberry flavored lube and normal flavored lube and gets a visit from Jungsoo-hyung on the rare occasion they’re all in the same country and able to spare a minute for conversation where the older man takes the time to inform Changmin that alphas, apparently, need more than just jerking off to end up getting off. Changmin handles the entire situation with flaming cheeks and the soul crushing realization that he’s somehow gotten the talk _again_ , but immediately goes home to both test out his new lube--works, tastes like strawberries, is kind of weird--and the putting pressure on the knot theory.

He thinks of Yunho-hyung the entire time, feels horribly, horribly guilty, but learns that being an alpha who’s actually fully getting some (albeit it form his right hand) is far better than being an alpha who, to quote Jungsoo-hyung, keeps walking around looking frustrated and also likely to commit I’m-a-virgin murder. 

And he texts Kyuhyun, since Kyuhyun is an alpha too, and it turns out drunkenly talking about your bandmate’s secret girlfriends and your desire to kiss them is the sort of thing that builds the kind of friendships that mean Changmin can totally text Kyuhyun shit like, `hey so, I’m definitely in love with Yunho-hyung fuck my life.`

`Erm… why is this a bad thing, again?` says Kyuhyun, in between schedules when Changmin finally has a moment to check his phone. They’re doing radio interviews and magazine photoshoots so Yunho-hyung doesn’t have to do much standing, but he’s still been set up with a chair and crutches and a harried looking manager-hyung to stand guard, going over their schedule with him and continuing to reiterate the fact that Yunho-hyung performing for A-Nation in Niigata is looking somewhere between ‘highly unlikely’ and ‘downright not happening at all.’ 

Changmin’s got his hair down this time, but it’s getting long enough that it curls around his ears and makes the stylists coo when he shows up to the set with natural wave. He’s not sure how he’s managed to keep his phone in between interviews and camera clicks, but he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

`Well first because it means I have to send you shit about lube and you yell at me`, he replies to Kyuhyun. `Also… he’s my bandmate?`

`Hyukjae and Donghae are bandmates`, says Kyuhyun, and it’s a testament to the strength of their newfound friendship that he’s not even touching the lube mention. 

`Hyukjae-hyung and Donghae-hyung are soulmates`, Changmin shoots back, even though his lips twist and his head hurts thinking about it. They are--they have the matching bites to show for it--but it’s been something of an issue given Super Junior’s only a year old and Donghae-hyung and Hyukjae-hyung are only twenty-one years old (but legal, so what can SM to do about it). Changmin doesn’t know the full story since TVXQ is too busy, but he does know that Donghae-hyung’s father is very sick, very supportive, and Heechul-hyung is both Donghae-hyung’s biggest fan and terrifying. 

`You and Yunho-hyung could be soulmates`, says Kyuhyun, like he’s mentioning the weather and not giving Changmin a near heart attack.

`Um, no, he’s a beta. I’m an alpha`, manages Changmin, glancing around the closed set like someone is going to see him or talk to him or somehow develop minding reading powers so they can see Changmin’s phone screen. 

`And you complain that Jaejoong-hyung is prejudiced.`

Changmin rolls his eyes. `What?`

`Look, Changmin, I love you.`

`Aw, Kyuhyun, I love you too`, says Changmin. `It’s not like we’re only friends because we’re the only people between our two bands who can actually talk to each other with casual speech.`

`Shut up.` Kyuhyun barrels on in a non-verbal, no-nonsense tone. `Changmin, I love you, but for the love of God don’t you think it’s possible that the reason you smelled an omega on Yunho-hyung at your presentation party is Yunho-hyung isn’t actually a beta but is in fact an omega?`

Changmin finds himself looking around their photoshoot set, this time noting that they’re about to be dragged in front of the cameras for real. `You’ve said this before, haven’t you?` he says.

Kyuhyun doesn’t reply for a little longer, almost like he’s taking a moment to shout towards the South Korean sky. 

`We’re in Tokyo`, Changmin tells him helpfully. `If you need to know which island to curse towards.`

`Stop changing the subject you asshat`, snaps Kyuhyun. `Yunho-hyung is an omega. Yes or No?`

Changmin thinks that over.

Changmin… _thinks that over_.

Changmin slides his gaze towards Yunho-hyung, getting to his feet with the managers practically hovering, eyes rolling despite the downward tilt of his mouth at the pain that just won’t go away, particularly since bedrest is hard enough to swallow when you’re twenty-one, but worse when you’re the nation’s dancing machine and an idol. 

He licks his lips.

“Changmin-ah!”

He stands, ready to go be not the nation’s dancing machine, yet somehow still an idol.

`Fuck`, he tells Kyuhyun first. `Fuck, Kyu. Yunho-hyung’s an omega.`

`You’re welcome`, Kyuhyun replies instantly. `Wait, why are you cursing? Isn’t this a good thing?`

`Why?` Changmin’s almost afraid to learn the answer.

`Cause you’re an alpha and now you can have a real-life chance?` Kyuhyun says.

Changmin thinks that one over, and kind of wants to bang his head against the nearest wall. When they take them up to the roof and pose them against a railing and Changmin’s arm ends up nestled next to Yunho-hyung’s hip, Changmin’s mostly just trying not to too obviously pull air along the roof of his mouth, the photographer’s soothing Japanese commands mere background noise over the more pressing, ‘holy shit Yunho-hyung’s an omega; how did I not notice before?’ pheromones that Changmin’s only now picking up on since he’s looking.

Jaejoong-hyung shoots him an odd look, one hand circled around Changmin’s other elbow to keep steady on the railing. “Changminnie?”

“I’m fine, Hyung,” Changmin says. He’ll grab scene blockers from Manager-hyung, and everything will be totally fine. 

\--

`Wait Kyuhyun-ah why didn’t Yunho-hyung tell me he was an omega?`

`Changmin, do you know what time it is?`

`Does he think I would be bothered?`

`Changmin, do you care what time it is?`

`Does he think I’d make big deal out of it? My dad’s an omega. Have I ever said anything to suggest I think badly of omega people?`

`Who am I kidding? Of course, you don’t care.`

`Kyuhyun shut up about me for a second this is important. `

`Okay, well… have you ever said anything to suggest you think well of omegas… omega… people... why are you talking like that at one in the morning?`

`You’re so right, Kyuhyun, thank you.`

`… You’re welcome?`

`You’re a true friend.`

\--

“So, uh, Yunho-hyung,” says Changmin.

Yunho-hyung stares back at him, brows raised. “Changmin.”

“You’ve met my father.”

Yunho-hyung nods slowly. “I have.”

“What did you think of him?” Changmin makes his face as open and kind as possible, even as his hands shake where he’s laced them behind his back and a sweat starts to break out on his brow, under his thankfully long bangs.

“I think your dad’s awesome, Changminnie, um?” says Yunho-hyung, sounding confused.

This is not going how Changmin pictured it going when he was figuring out how to mention his dad in casual conversation, as all his attempts to praise Donghae-hyung ended with Yunho-hyung squinting at him, and Hyukjae-hyung taking time out of Super Junior’s very busy schedule to give him the ‘he’s mine; back off’ talk like Changmin was at all interested in getting in the middle between soulmates.

“Good,” Changmin says, because it’s better to cut your losses when you’re still ahead. “That’s good--”

“Yunho-yah. Changmin-ah!” Manager-hyung is calling for them, and Changmin practically trips he’s so startled.

Yunho-hyung reaches out a hand to steady him, expression kind, and Changmin’s heart rate picks up embarrassingly fast simply because of that point of contact.

“Twenty minutes!” announces Manager-hyung, looking a little harried, before turning to go and wrangle the rest of their band.

Yunho-hyung nods, still holding Changmin by one arm, and smiles.

Changmin’s heart rate goes from ‘wow Yunho-hyung is touching me’ to ‘wow, Yunho-hyung has the most beautiful smile and also is an omega; we could kiss maybe’ in about the time it takes for Yunho-hyung to look at him, less fond and more concerned, now.

“I’m fine,” Changmin blurts.

Yunho-hyung finally releases him--a relief, since Changmin was thinking he might need to gnaw his own arm off and flee. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Um. You were saying about your dad?”

“I love my dad,” Changmin says. “My dad had both of my baby sisters,” Changmin says. “Like mostly because my mom wouldn’t do birth again.” He winces, fully aware that he is the definition of oversharing but unable to stop. “But uh… yeah. Dad had both of them. Sooyeon and Jiyeon.” He can’t help but smile fondly. “They weren’t born the same year but my parents gave them generational names, I guess.”

Yunho-hyung smiles back at him, seemingly unbothered by Changmin’s rambling. “That’s cute,” he says. “I’ve always thought about doing that for my kids.”

Changmin latches onto that desperately. “Do you want children, Yunho-hyung?” he asks. This is… not how he wanted this conversation to go--they’ve very quickly stepped away from the much more important ‘I’m not a bigot because my dad is like you and I don’t care’ part of this conversation into the realm of things that are likely to have Changmin lying awake tormenting himself with the knowledge that Yunho-hyung wants to have _babies_ one day.

“Yes,” says Yunho-hyung, finally looking a little shy. He ducks his head and rubs at the back of his neck a little. “At least two. A boy, of course, and then I’d really like a daughter--” He stops, clearly still embarrassed. “More than, ah, Bambi--” He’s so unfairly perfect looking, even as he flushes to the tips of his ears and smiles a nervous smile. “You’re not--going to make fun of me--”

“No?” Changmin says immediately, voice gone high and panicked. “What? Who would--”

“Yunho-yah! Changmin-ah!” shouts Manager-hyung again. “You’re due on stage!”

Changmin totally doesn’t pinwheel embarrassingly in response, and Yunho-hyung grabs him by the arm again coincidentally. “Yes, Hyung?” he says, looking at their manager. He’s still on and off crutches--it has only been a few weeks--and he won’t be performing for any of their A Nation concerts, it seems--but other than that, he’s still the leader he’s always been.

It’s distracting.

Changmin keeps looking at him and irrationally wanting to protect him, mostly from himself, and then he has to take a moment to talk himself off a ledge and call home to his father to apologize. His dad takes everything in stride, but still ends most of these calls saying loudly to Changmin’s mother ‘is your son alright?’ like he wasn’t involved in Changmin’s making.

“They’re ready for you,” Manager-hyung explains again, gesturing towards where the rest of their staff and team are waiting to usher them out for their fanmeet.

Changmin can hear the crowd.

“Right, yes,” Yunho-hyung says. He smiles at Changmin one more time, then hurries off at a mild limp to take his place in the center of their pre-show shouting ritual.

Changmin stares after him, reviews the entire conversation frantically in his mind, and comes to the conclusion that figuring out he’s in love had turned him into a complete and utter idiot.

`I’m an idiot`, he texts Kyuhyun that evening in bed. He can year Yoochun-hyung snoring in the bed beside him, make out just the top of Jaejoong-hyung’s head as he snores to his right. Junsu-hyung and Yunho-hyung are sound asleep as well, leaving only Changmin to lie awake, troubled.

`Yes`, replies Kyuhyun immediately. Then, `What did Yunho-hyung do this time? Breathe?`

Changmin glares at the screen. `Fuck off`, he replies

`Aw, Chwang, come on`, says Kyuhyun. `I’ve given you tons of useful advice!`

Changmin thinks about all of his disastrous attempts to get across to Yunho-hyung that he wouldn’t care if the man wanted to confess to them all that he was an omega, mostly because of Kyuhyun. `Your advice sucks`, he says.

`You’re just mad Yunho-hyung won’t let you`, retorts Kyuhyun.

Changmin sets his phone down on his chest and looks miserably at the ceiling. `Yeah`, he tells Kyuhyun after a mild pause.

`Oh God`, his friend replies. `Chwang.`

Changmin looks at the character of his nickname with despair.

`Fighting`, Kyuhyun says. `It’ll all work out, Changmin.`

Changmin shuts his eyes, finally ready to sleep. He really hopes it works out, but he’s not willing to bet on it. How can it? Changmin’s a disaster of a human being--no way someone like Yunho-hyung, whose only bad traits seem to be his inability to look after himself because he’s just that nice and dedicated to their continued success as a band, would be--

Changmin gulps, because he can’t even bring himself to say it, let alone think it. When he was a kid, he didn’t think about it because he didn’t have time. Then Yunho-hyung was a beta and Changmin was an alpha and he didn’t think about it because it was supposed to be impossible, according to what the world said. Now, Yunho-hyung isn’t a beta--but he still could be, some tiny, scared part of Changmin whispers every now and again. He could still be and have some hidden omega girlfriend ready to have two perfect children.

Or more likely, he could be an omega, and therefore about as perfect for Changmin as he could be, if he had to be a man, and still Changmin could have no chance.

It’s a lot, for nineteen.

Changmin doesn’t get a lot of sleep that night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Share this fic: [Tumblr](https://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/186932308715/my-heart-froze-in-early-winter-author-zimriya) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1160281917465530368?s=20).


	4. shake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note:** this chapter features the events of October 2006 and there is some discussion of vomiting/the effects of said events of October 2006.

#### 04\. Shake

* * *

For the two seconds it takes for their staff to realize what’s going on, Changmin is honestly so distracted he doesn’t even notice. It’s just that he’s tired and variety is the most draining part of being an idol, besides the concerts and performances. This is because unlike the concerts and performances, variety isn’t live. Changmin has ample opportunity to fuck up and flub lines and then feel awful when they reset and have to go again. 

 _Heroine Six_ is a funny show and Sukjin-sunbaenim is a funny person, so it’s not like the experience has been a hardship. It’s more that it’s some ungodly hour at night and Changmin’s eyes hurt from all the lights. 

Hence, when Yunho-hyung receives the drink that effectively ends filming, Changmin doesn’t notice. 

He doesn’t notice until Yunho-hyung’s manager has made his way over to Yunho-hyung looking concerned, has put a hand in between his shoulder blades and frowned down at what Changmin will later find out is blood lining the trash can, has raised his voice, shouting, “Someone call for an ambulance! We need an ambulance!” and has, with the ease and foresight of someone who probably didn’t daydream during their first aid training, lifted Yunho-hyung’s chin, looked seriously into his rapidly dilating eyes, and stuck two fingers down his throat. 

Yunho-hyung throws up almost immediately, bent back over the trash can with his shoulders shuddering through dry heaves, and Changmin just stares, mouth falling open, as the set dissolves into chaos around them. 

Yunho-hyung’s manager is now on the phone with the paramedics, eyes hard and expression quietly furious, and two more of their staff are hovering beside Yunho-hyung. The PD on _Heroine Six_ , a tall beta man with good skin who’d been only smiles when he was meeting the five of them, looks worried, muttering quietly to some of the staff standing around him, but ultimately seems content to let others take charge. Some of the older cast on the show have stood, Sukjin-hyung having been the one to call 119 in the first place. 

The heroines, usually so rambunctious and filled with good humor, stand motionless in a group, all traces of emotion leached from the room. 

At Changmin’s side, Yoochun-hyung is swearing, still wearing the ridiculous Mickey Mouse ears from the Catch the Mouse game. Jaejoong-hyung has Junsu-hyung by both hands, eyes wide. 

“What’s happening?” their eldest starts to say, at the same time the manager-hyung on the phone with 119 notices the bottle of orange juice, sitting innocuously on the set desk Yunho-hyung had been beside. 

One of the remaining managers reaches for it, and Yunho-hyung’s manager shouts. “Stop! That’s evidence now!” 

“Evidence,” Jaejoong-hyung repeats, still clutching Junsu-hyung, but also shoving Yoochun-hyung into shocked silence. 

Woojin-hyung has already lifted the orange juice, but his expression is rueful as he brings it to his nose for a sniff. He frowns, clearly uncertain. “Huh,” he says, rather eloquently.  

Yunho-hyung’s manager swears, then turns towards Yunho-hyung himself, clearly following someone’s instructions. “Yunho-yah. Can you breathe? Speak if you can breathe.” 

There’s awful, awful silence.

Yunho-hyung must rasp something out, because his manager gives his shoulder what has to be a punishingly tight squeeze, before craning to look around the set. 

“What stage is this?” 

One of the PAs hurries forward with the information, and Sukjin-sunbaenim strides forward with one hand raised. “We’re on the third floor. I’ll meet them at the elevator,” he says, before walking off. 

Woojin-hyung gives the bottle in his hand a disgusted shake, and then makes a face at what he must see. “It’s not orange juice,” he says, voice unnaturally loud in the sudden silence of the set. 

The PD seems to come out of his stupor. “Who brought the drinks?” he snaps, looking around for someone to shout at, to order around.

A nervous looking young man startles to attention, but Yunho-hyung coughs raspily before the PD can say anything. “No,” he says, and his voice is nearly unrecognizable. “Was a--” He sounds like he has to work to force the words out, like it’s physically hurting him to speak, but he keeps going anyway, because he’s the most stubborn person Changmin has ever known. “--girl,” he finishes. 

Changmin would doubt him, but Yunho-hyung’s almost notorious in their industry for his ability to remember faces. 

“I--” Yunho-hyung stops again, but this time seems almost confused as to why, not like he’s just hurting. “Hyung?” His voice sounds even tinier. “What’s going on?” And then he goes down, eyes rolling back, and Changmin makes an involuntary little noise in the back of his throat. 

It’s drowned out by the arrival of the paramedics, finally here, accompanied by a worried looking Sukjin-sunbaenim. 

“Shit, he’s bleeding,” Changmin hears one manager-hyung mutter, and then Changmin’s the one sinking to the ground, more strangled noises bubbling up from the back of his throat. 

“Bleeding,” he hears Junsu-hyung repeat. “What--oh fuck Changmin--”  

And he and Jaejoong-hyung are bending down to huddle around Changmin, eyes wild. 

“I’m fine,” Changmin says, trying fruitlessly to see over them to Yunho-hyung, being helped onto a stretcher, and the hospital workers bagging the orange juice. 

“It looked like glue,” Woojin-hyung mutters, voice still loud because of how quiet everyone still is. 

“Glue,” Changmin manages, finally standing with Jaejoong-hyung’s hands all over him. He shrugs them off, inhales sharply and then makes a face, for once glad he’s still figuring out suppressant brands, and his nose is a little clogged. 

Jaejoong-hyung casts him a knowing look, before sobering very quickly in time to watch Yunho-hyung roll off towards the elevator. 

“Hyung,” he says to Yunho-hyung’s manager, who’s following alongside the stretcher holding Yunho-hyung’s hand. 

“Follow us in the car,” the man instructs them all generally, before rattling off the name of the hospital to the other staff.

Woojin-hyung nods. 

For once, it takes an unheard of three minutes for them all to be packed into the van, and the drive across town is absolutely silent save for their breathing. 

\--

The nurse sent to walk by them is an alpha, this time. She’s shorter than the one who came by before that--an omega woman who hadn’t so much as glanced in their direction. Clearly that nurse hadn’t seen what the fuss was, but hadn’t wanted to be left out. Before her was a beta, and Changmin had honestly not really been paying much attention. But three times is a pattern, so when the alpha nurse comes by, Changmin finally notices. 

He watches her make her way past the bench they’ve commandeered in the waiting area with a detached sort of listlessness, eyes haunted, limbs curled tight to his chest, and bowed up against the wall uncomfortably. They’ve been here for hours and Changmin is exhausted, feeling haggard and stretched like threads on a loom. He’d been tired before filming was abruptly finished, but it’s well into the early morning now and the bags under Changmin’s eyes probably have bags.

She’s definitely pretty. Not more than the second nurse, because she’s an alpha, and some part of Changmin is far too tired to be into that. Not that Changmin’s into alphas anyway, or anything other than Yunho-hyung at this point. 

Yunho-hyung.

It’s been hours since they’ve heard anything about Yunho-hyung. Changmin swallows, throat aching even though he’s not the one who one-shot poison, and lays his gaze back onto the hospital floor. 

The nurse finishes her sorry excuse of a pass by their bench, before pivoting to head back to where she’d come. She’s clearly more of a fan, because she blushes when Jaejoong-hyung looks up and meets her eyes. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologizes as he does so, dropping into a respectful bow. “I--” 

Jaejoong-hyung stands, both hands clenched into the folds of his pants at his thighs. He looks nervous, smells serious, and his voice is like honey when he speaks. “Excuse me. Agassi.” 

The nurse flushes even more, clearly even less sure what to do with Jaejoong-hyung’s full charm directed at her. 

“What can you tell us about--our bandmate? Yunho. Jung Yunho.” His question fractures coming out, but it comes out regardless. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” the nurse sputters, clearly less embarrassed now and more wary about the state of her job. 

Yoochun-hyung and Junsu-hyung stand as well, expressions earnest. 

Changmin doesn’t have the strength to stand, but he turns pleading eyes on the woman as well. It’s not hard to well tears up in the corners of his eyes, not hard to bite his lip raw to keep from actually crying. Changmin already did that when they first got to the hospital, in the bathroom, clenching his fists so hard that his palms should have bled, so that he wouldn’t pull out his phone and wake his parents.

The nurse wavers. “I’ll see what I can do,” she says in a rush, before bowing, laughing almost involuntarily, and then darting off. She’s cute, for an alpha. 

Changmin stares after her, slumped back against the wall. 

From his place at the end of the bench, Manager-hyung slowly unfolds a hand from under his chin, sunglasses still on to keep the fluorescent lights out. He’d said he was taking a nap, but clearly hadn’t been. “That wasn’t very nice,” he says. 

Jaejoong-hyung sinks back down on the bench and scowls, clearly too tired to care about decorum. “Like you’re not curious too,” he mutters in banmal. When that gets him lowered shades, he adds, grudgingly, “Hyung.” 

Manager-hyung straightens, then leans back against the wall like Changmin. “I suppose I should be grateful you’re using your fame for good,” he says.

None of them so much as laugh, let alone leap upon the opportunity for posturing. They’re fresh off the high of a Korean comeback, and it’s never hard to feel larger than life, nor is it any less fun to make a huge deal of their fame, fluffing up imaginary feathers and making their staff roll their eyes in good humor at their ridiculousness. It’s all in good fun. It’s not like any of them really think they’re all that, Changmin thinks. 

Not one of them has the energy for it right now. 

Junsu-hyung’s pocket chirps, and Yoochun-hyung glares at him from where he’d ended up slumped against Jaejoong-hyung trying to sleep. “Sorry,” says Junsu-hyung, before pulling out his phone. “It’s Hyukjae.” He flips the screen open and squints down at it. “I put the volume up so I wouldn’t forget to text him back.” 

Changmin gets it, he told Kibum and Kyuhyun immediately, and just getting through that phone call was hard enough. He can’t imagine what it would have been to get it--to be any of the others in Super Junior, forced to wait for news through word of mouth. Heechul-hyung hasn’t called, but that was probably because he was still in and out of the hospital himself after his surgery. 

And it’s not like Yunho-hyung’s even awake, or anything. 

Changmin swallows the lump in his throat. 

“None of them have gone to sleep,” Junsu-hyung says quietly. “Donghae.” He laughs, kind of like he’s broken inside. “Donghae cried.” 

Changmin faces him. “I cried.” 

Yoochun-hyung doesn’t move from his slumped place against Jaejoong-hyung, but he lifts a hand as well. “Guilty.” 

Jaejoong-hyung doesn’t stop staring down the hallway towards the room they know Yunho-hyung is in. 

“We all cried,” Changmin continues.

Junsu-hyung shrugs, still texting Super Junior. “Whatever.” 

Changmin shifts to keep talking, when there’s movement, and the nurse from before comes nervously into view. 

She moves past their unreasonable number of bodyguards looking awkward and uncomfortable, but they let her through without comment. 

Changmin had forgotten they were there, they’ve been so quiet. The rest of their staff are off keeping fans out of the hospital itself, since even though they’ve left the emergency room Yunho-hyung was rushed to straight from filming by the ambulance, they’ve still been followed. Changmin would hate that, if the fans they had seen hadn’t all been crying. 

Jaejoong-hyung staggers to his feet, nearly knocking Yoochun-hyung off the bench in the process. “Shh,” he hisses when their bandmate starts to protest. “Yes?” 

The alpha nurse pauses, eyes darting around, before finally straightening her shoulders. “He’s still sleeping,” she says. “They pumped his stomach.” 

Changmin winces, his own innards turning in sympathetic circles. Yunho-hyung has always had weak digestion--gastritis combined with a tendency towards forgetting to eat--but from what little the police had been willing to offer them, the drink he’d thrown back in one shot had been mostly super glue. It really was a wonder his throat hadn’t closed up, and that their managers had thought on their feet and forced him to throw up most of it. 

“He woke up briefly afterwards, but he’s been very distressed, so they’ve given him something so that he sleeps--oh--” 

Jaejoong-hyung mimes taking a photo, somehow getting his hands on the nurse’s phone, and pressing in close to her to take the selfie. Their eldest’s expression more than a little brittle, and the nurse tries her best to refuse the offered autograph. 

“I wouldn’t,” she says. “I mean tonight of all nights--”

Changmin would agree, but it’s hard to argue with Jaejoong-hyung once he starts mentioning how Yunho-hyung would have insisted, even now, that they be kind to their fans. 

That’s true. 

Yunho-hyung will probably wake up and the first thing he’ll want to know will be if they’d finished the recording. He’s just that kind of asshole. If he wakes up. He’ll wake up. 

Changmin wants to cry. 

“Jaejoong-yah,” Manager-hyung interrupts all of this finally, barley moving. “Stop harassing the young woman and sit down.” 

Jaejoong-hyung sinks onto to the bench with a growl, but not before smiling pleasantly at the nurse and handing her phone back. 

The woman shakes her head, finally looking less starstruck, and makes a show of deleting the photo. She hands Jaejoong-hyung back his signature, expression wry. “Thank you, Yoongwoong Jaejoong-ssi,” she says. 

Changmin can’t help but bark out a cry of startled laughter when he sees the look on Jaejoong-hyung’s face, and then he has to cover his mouth with both hands to keep from turning that noise into sobbing. “Sorry,” he says when he’s finishing getting himself together. “Sorry.” 

The nurse bows to them all once more, before leaving them to their own devices. 

Changmin watches her return to her coworkers, before turning his gaze to the nearest bodyguard. “Hyung.”

The man doesn’t return the look but sticks the hand with his watch on it out for Changmin’s inspection, as he’s been doing for the past hour or so. It’s officially almost Sunday, and they all have to go to _Inkigayo_ filming that morning. 

It’s likely they’ll have to go without Yunho-hyung. Perform without Yunho-hyung.

Changmin doesn’t know how to think about that, what to feel about that. “Hyung,” he says again, and this time he means Jaejoong-hyung. He feels like the baby for the first time in months, and some small part of him has been screaming since the moment Yunho-hyung first passed out and hasn’t managed to stop. The dark part of him that maybe wants to own Yunho-hyung, that woke up that spring when his knot did and can’t quite wrap its head around the fact that Yunho might be an omega, but he isn’t Changmin’s omega. And even if he was, Changmin still wouldn’t get to own Yunho. Yunho-hyung. Fuck, Changmin’s going to have to call his dad and apologize again. 

“Changmin,” says Jaejoong-hyung. 

At which point they hear Yunho-hyung is awake and if they’re quiet and well behaved, they’ll be allowed to see him in pairs. 

Changmin snags Junsu-hyung by the hand and holds him so tight it has to hurt, but Junsu-hyung’s strangling his fingers right back, so it’s not like he’s bothered.

Yunho-hyung isn’t really that awake, but he still smiles when he sees them. “Changminnie. Junsu. Hi.” 

Changmin doesn’t think Yunho-hyung should be awake so soon after having had a tube down his throat, but he can’t figure out how to say that. He’s too busy trying not to too-obviously sob. 

“Yunho-hyung,” says Junsu-hyung, with enough pain for the both of them. “You’re okay.”

Yunho-hyung grins back at them, then winces when the move pulls at his ribs. Changmin thinks about what they didn’t see from the original ambulance ride and about the mottled bruises CPR can sometimes leave behind. 

He thinks about Yunho-hyung’s bleeding mouth. 

He holds Junsu-hyung so hard he actually draws blood. 

“Ow, Changmin.” Junsu-hyung finally pries his hand free, wincing. He rubs at the little puncture wounds Changmin’s left on the back of his hand, mouth downturned. There’s blood bubbling up there, like TVXQ’s gotten a cat, or something, and not just an emotionally compromised maknae. 

Changmin goes to apologize, then pauses when the smell of blood rolls up against the roof of his mouth. It mixes with the antiseptic and distinctly sour tastes of disease, death, and the more generic scent of hospital. Changmin’s gotten familiar with the combination, staple for whenever one of them goes in for injections or whatever. He wouldn’t have said a person should ever be able to recognize death alone by scent, but aside from sex--and what an inopportune thought to be having at present, thanks for that lizard-brain-Changmin--Changmin supposes health is the most important bit of information a person might need to learn about someone else. It’s cloying enough to leave him coughing. That it’s Yunho-hyung smelling a little like he skirted death doesn’t help much. Changmin’s going to get a migraine. 

“We should tell Hyukjae-hyung,” he tells Junsu-hyung, eyes not looking away from Yunho-hyung’s. “That he’s awake.” 

Yunho-hyung’s lashes dip down to brush his cheekbones for a flash of a second, before he’s back to staring at Changmin with that funny half-smile. It’s like his lips can’t remember how to be turned up at both ends. It makes Changmin think about horror movies and that time his health class covered strokes. Yunho-hyung didn’t have a stroke. He just drank the super glue an anti-fan gave him. 

Changmin has to take a few more deep breaths, Junsu-hyung’s scratches stinking up the air for all of them. When he’s done, Yunho-hyung’s looking at him almost knowingly, and Changmin’s heart skips a beat. It’s common knowledge that Changmin is the highest scoring on Jacobson’s tests after Jaejoong-hyung, but they all accept that that’s because Changmin’s an alpha. They all know Yoochun-hyung is as good as scent blind, and pretty girls are forever running circles around an unaware and frustrated Junsu-hyung. Only Yunho-hyung’s never really talked about his own scores on pheromone tests. They all know they’re high enough. Changmin thinks--knows-- _thinks_ that it’s likely they’re high because Yunho-hyung isn’t actually a beta--but this is as close as they’ve ever gotten to acknowledging it. 

This… little exchanging of glances, the barely there upturn of each of their mouths, a nod to existing with just a hint of a leg up on the rest of their world. 

Changmin’s breath is catching all over again and he almost wants to say something--to press the issue, get answers, find out, if not for the band, but for himself (and not the snarling monster inside his chest that wants to own Yunho-hyung). 

Before he can do so Jaejoong-hyung is poking an angry head in the door. 

“If you’re just going to stare at him can we come in now?” he says, then yells when Yoochun-hyung yanks him back into the hallway. 

“Take your time, Changmin, Hyungs,” Yoochun-hyung calls happily. “I’ve got this one. He hasn’t slept all night, and you know how he is.” 

“A knothead,” all three of them chorus, and this time when Yunho-hyung laughs, it looks much less pained.

\--

When Yunho-hyung’s family arrives later that morning, Yunho-hyung still isn’t really all the way awake. Still, their staff decides that most of TVXQ can be dismissed from hospital watch. It’s well into the 15th at this point, with sunrise looming. The four of them need to be washed and dressed for _Inkigayo_ , where they’re due to perform ‘O.’ 

Changmin thinks they don’t need to leave quite this early, but he knows better than to argue. 

And it’s not like they’re helping much hovering in the background as they have been. Yunho-hyung’s family has done the most since arriving, mostly because they’re family and don’t have the same restrictions on visiting hours. Manager-hyung tries to stay in the room a lot of the time just to keep appraised of Yunho-hyung’s status and general wellbeing, which lowers the number of non-familiar strangers even more.

At most Yoochun-hyung has been organizing the flowers the fans keep somehow sending to them, and smiling at the hospital staff who keep bringing them in.

So their dismissal, while disheartening, isn’t exactly unexpected. 

It still turns Changmin’s stomach in panicky knots. He’d hate to be performing on stage while Yunho-hyung lay in a hospital bed and… wilted. Not died, because he’s not dying anymore and Changmin’s already witnessed Jaejoong-hyung getting told off for being an overdramatic nuisance by more than two managers, but… wilting, because when they pile into Yunho-hyung’s room for one final goodbye, their leader smiles toothily up at them, very clearly drugged to the gills. 

Changmin knows he’s been having trouble sleeping and keeping down any liquids, and he gets it. They passed the same brand of orange juice in a vending machine in the cafeteria earlier, and he wanted to throw up in sympathy. From what he’s said on Cyworld, he’s sure Heechul-hyung would do worse.

“Hi,” rasps Yunho-hyung, with another happy smile. 

“Hi,” Changmin whispers back. He doesn’t think Yunho-hyung was really looking for a response but he does it anyway. “We’re, ah, going to get ready for _Inkigayo_ filming, now,” says Changmin. 

Yoochun-hyung snickers at him but stops when Changmin elbows him hard in the side. 

“And then, uh, other things after,” continues Changmin, rather unhelpfully if he says so himself. 

“‘Uh,’ ‘ah,’” parrots Yoochun-hyung, clearly ready to risk another elbow to the ribs. “We were going to make him do the speech but clearly we’re not now.” 

“Shut up or you’re doing it,” growls out Changmin. After a pause, and the sudden realization that Yunho-hyung’s entire family is still in the room, he flushes. When he looks, he can tell that Jihye has definitely been crying and hasn’t noticed, but Yunho-hyung’s mother smiles at him from behind red rimmed eyes. 

It’s almost the same smile on Yunho-hyung’s face, seemingly unbothered by Yoochun-hyung’s teasing.

“I’ll do the speech,” Changmin mutters, embarrassed for no good reason.

Yunho-hyung grins up at him.

“ _I’ll_ do your dance,” interjects Junsu-hyung, but his outburst is overshadowed by Yunho-hyung’s mother, loudly blowing her nose.

Yunho-hyung’s father vanishes the handkerchief he’d gotten her and puts an arm around her shoulders, expression composed, but no less concerned. It’s the sort of concern Changmin would expect from someone like Yunho-hyung’s father, who honestly Changmin’s still a little scared of.

The man did let Yunho-hyung sleep at bus stations for the first few weeks of his trainee period, after all.

“Sorry,” Yunho-hyung’s mother says, finishing sniffling. “Sorry. Yunho-yah. We should let you get some sleep now.”

She smiles again, and then looks at all four of them like she wants to pinch their cheeks, or something. 

Which is enough to scare Junsu-hyung and Yoochun-hyung into accepting their early dismissal with grace, turning towards their waiting managers without pause. 

The man’s lips twitch, but he lets them get away with the excuse easily enough. “Come on,” he says, with one last look at Yunho-hyung. “The car is down waiting for us. We’ll go back to the dorm. I’ve heard Suju is waiting up for you all.”

Junsu-hyung and Yoochun-hyung nod, darting in quickly to stand over Yunho-hyung nervously, not sure if they’re allowed to give him a hug.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” Junsu-hyung says, squeezing his hand awkwardly, before tugging Yoochun-hyung away and out into the hall.

Jaejoong-hyung stays frozen in the center of the room, Changmin half a step behind him. Changmin’s mostly waiting for Jaejoong-hyung to leave. The monster in his chest wants to be the last of them to leave, it seems. 

Only Jaejoong-hyung doesn’t leave. “I’m staying,” he says, leaving no room for argument. “You can still go,” he adds, to Changmin, Yoochun-hyung, and Junsu-hyung before anyone can protest guiltily, “and I’ll be at SM in time to leave for _Inkigayo_ , but. I’m staying. Please.”

Manager-hyung looks at him for a long, hard moment, before sighing. “I suppose it’s good for your image,” he mutters, then seems to realize what he’s said, and colors visibly. He rubs the back of his neck with one hand like a nervous tick. His eyes dart between Yunho-hyung lying on the bed, and Yunho-hyung’s parents, both of whom are studiously avoiding everyone’s gazes and are instead having a silent conversation with what seems to be only their eyes. 

“Changmin,” says Manager-hyung, gesturing. 

Changmin opens his mouth, so unwilling to move he almost shakes. “I--” But he can’t stay, because there’s only so many people allowed to see Yunho-hyung, and really, what would Changmin do anyway. He’d just get underfoot, or mess things up for the doctors, or make Yunho-hyung’s family feel awkward. They all call each other family but they never see their families together and this is something for Yunho-hyung’s real family. 

Changmin looks back towards the bed.

He’s falling back into drug-induced sleep again, anyway.

Changmin ducks his head politely to all the adults in the room before starting towards the door and Manager-hyung. 

Jaejoong-hyung remains in the room, and after a pause, goes to stand closer to Yunho-hyung’s bed, watching him sleep. 

Changmin hates him. 

He hates him so much and he can’t speak, can’t look at anyone, let alone Yunho-hyung, or Yunho-hyung’s mother or father. It’s irrational and stupid and they need to focus on their activities without Yunho-hyung, clearly, but Changmin can’t help himself. 

He curls up in a ball in the van and stares angrily out the window and lets them all think he’s angry at the world because it tried to take Yunho-hyung from them. 

He does the speech when they win _Inkigayo_. 

He totally doesn’t cry. 

He’s right, about the omega thing. 

Somehow it doesn’t feel all that great, once everyone else knows.

\--

Yunho-hyung stays in the hospital for barely more than two days, released on Monday to his doctor’s displeasure and their manager’s guilt. It’s mostly his idea, honestly, so it’s not like the doctors can really be upset, but it still makes Jaejoong-hyung’s lips turn down at the corners, and Changmin’s skin itch. 

Yunho-hyung has missed a lot of their Sunday and Monday schedules, but he’s planning to film _Over the Mountain, Across the River_ with the rest of them on Thursday as expected. Aside from an insisted period of bed-rest for the first few hours he’s home--keeping him from Sukira recording with Jungsoo-hyung and Hyukjae-hyung--Yunho-hyung pretty much returns as if he hasn’t nearly just died.

The girl who did this to him turns herself in, revealed to have been exactly what the rumors said: Ko first-name-retracted, an anti-fan who’s barely more than Changmin’s age. She sent them ugly, nasty letters, and hated the fact that Yunho-hyung had the gall to fucking _smile_.

Yunho-hyung refuses to press charges.

Changmin wants to shake him and hold him and curl around him and never let him go.

He doesn’t do any of those things.

He goes to their schedules, flies when they’re told, laughs when they’re told, tolerates his long blond hair, laughs about the costumes they wear for all their ‘Balloons’ performances. 

Life goes on.

Yunho-hyung seems fine.

Which is why it comes as such a shock when Changmin wanders out of their bedroom one evening for the bathroom, then towards the kitchen for a glass of water, and then stumbles over Yunho-hyung, sitting silently in the middle of the floor in front of their couch. There appears to be a line of glass bottles in front of him. Changmin blinks, confused and not awake. His slows to a halt, quest for water forgotten.  

Yunho-hyung has one bottle in his hand, grip so tight around the neck of it that Changmin’s surprised it’s not shattered, and he’s utterly still. 

As he gets closer, Changmin can see that his hand is shaking. Fingers holding on so hard that they’re white at the knuckle. 

He stops in the doorway, uncertain and confused.

Their episode of _Heroine Six_ aired that evening on Happy Sunday, but they were all too busy with schedules to watch. Honestly Changmin thinks even if they hadn’t been, none of them would have wanted to see it anyway, the entire experience too tainted by Yunho-hyung’s near-death one. Supposedly it was funny. Supposedly the fans loved all of it, getting to watch Changmin smack Yunho-hyung and Jaejoong-hyung in the head with a plastic hammer toy.

Changmin doesn’t really remember doing any of it.

He swallows, hating how every little thing reminds him of the accident.

He stares at the back of Yunho-hyung’s head.

Unbidden, his feet move him closer to the man. 

“Hyung,” says Changmin.

Yunho-hyung doesn’t move to look at him, but the hand holding the bottle shudders to so violent the liquid in it splatters on the ground.

Changmin flinches, startled and automatically looking for blood, and finally realizes that they’re all orange juice. The same one from the 14th--from _that day_ \--lined up like soldiers going to war. Every last one, the same down to the brand, bright and colorful and unfairly peppy for what it was used for. 

Changmin sinks down to his knees next to Yunho-hyung, reaching out to pick up a bottle of juice without speaking. He reads, sets it down, and palms the next one. They’ve all got different expiration dates, all of them clearly having been bought at different times.

Changmin doesn’t think that Yunho-hyung even had Manager-hyung get them for him; he must have seen them in vending machines or at convenience stores and bought them himself.

And not drank them, apparently, if the last one’s sell by date means anything.

Changmin tips his head to the side. They’re all still cold, so clearly Yunho-hyung’s been keeping them in the fridge--in their fridge? How is it no one else has noticed? Surely one of them would have had a full fledged panic attack if they opened the fridge and were faced with ten bottles of the stuff that nearly killed Yunho-hyung… right? 

Changmin frowns. “How?” he starts to say.

“I can’t,” Yunho-hyung interrupts, not looking at him and his expression in full shadow. “I can’t. Drink,” he says. His voice is dry like he’s just woken up. “Anything,” he finishes.

Changmin’s questions dry up. “Yunho-hyung,” he says. There’s nothing else he can say.

Yunho-hyung finally turns to look at him, hand still clutching that damn bottle. His eyes look haunted, lashes sticking together like he’s been crying. Somehow that’s even worse. Yunho-hyung _never cries_.

Changmin chews hard enough on his bottom lip to make it bleed. “I’m sorry,” he says. It’s all he can say.

Yunho-hyung’s gaze drops down to the line of juice, then to the one in his hand. “Me too,” he says. Then he laughs, and sets the thing down on the ground. It looks out of place there, at an angle to the others and not at all evenly spaced.

For what feels like minutes, Changmin and Yunho-hyung stare down at it in silence.

Then Changmin opens his mouth. 

“I can’t even drink _water_ , Changminnie,” whispers Yunho-hyung. 

Changmin startles. “But--”

“I mean I do,” clarifies Yunho-hyung, hands shaking around nothing now. He puts them under his knees, clearly annoyed at the show of weakness. “But even if it’s Manager-hyung.” His voice trails off unwillingly, and he shakes his bangs out of his eyes angrily. “It’s stupid,” he decides, then swipes at the corners of his eyes. “Fuck,” he swears. “I’m _fucking_ crying.” 

Changmin doesn’t know what to do. Yunho-hyung never cries. 

“I shouldn’t cry,” Yunho-hyung says. “I shouldn’t. I’m still alive.”

Changmin isn’t equipped for this, but hell if he’s going to go get someone else. Jaejoong-hyung would know what to say. 

Yunho-hyung laughed when he came from the hospital, sharing a car with Jaejoong-hyung. He laughed after _X-Man_ filming. 

Changmin’s fully aware of the reason their friendship pisses him off, but he does his best to make the most of it. It helps that since finding out that Yunho-hyung isn’t actually a beta, Jaejoong-hyung has been… weird about Yunjae. 

But Changmin’s stupid feelings are entirely misplaced, at the moment. He shouldn’t be thinking about how deeply he’s in love with Yunho-hyung now.

Not when Yunho-hyung is baring his soul to him. 

“You almost died,” Changmin whispers.

Yunho-hyung shrugs, like it’s no big deal.

Changmin wants to hit him.

Changmin does.

For two seconds, they’re both so startled by that they don’t move, and then Yunho-hyung reaches up to hold his bicep, mouth parted. “Ow!” he yelps. “Changdol-ah!”

Changmin glares at him blearily, then smudges his own tears. “Fuck you,” he says. “You almost _died_ ,” he says. _I almost lost you_ , he doesn’t say. 

Yunho-hyung is still staring at him with his mouth open like an unattractive goldfish.

Changmin totally doesn’t want to kiss him or anything. 

“You’re allowed to be fucking _affected_ by that, Yunho-hyung,” Changmin says.

Yunho-hyung keeps watching him, rubbing little circles into the bare skin of his arm. “You hit me,” he says.

“You pissed me off,” Changmin retorts, not willing to feel guilty at all. 

“Language, Changminnie,” says Yunho-hyung, still holding his arm. “People are going to start to think you’re older than me.”

Changmin rolls his eyes, careful to keep his next few words crisp and polite. “The sky would fall first,” he says. “You’d cry, every day, whenever we go on stage.”

Yunho-hyung finally drops his hand and shoves him, grinning.

Changmin goes where shoved, finally smiling. His ears feel warm and his heart can’t seem to stop thudding, but it’s too dark for Yunho-hyung to notice, let alone say anything. Changmin’s gotten very good at hiding things, in the months since his presentation and ensuing realization. He figures they have to have a few more good years left of this, before Yunho-hyung finds some pretty girl to marry. An alpha, probably. Or maybe a beta. Changmin doesn’t like to think about it, but he thinks he’d be okay with that, if Yunho-hyung married a beta girl. 

His smile dies a little, and Yunho-hyung shoves him again, probably in response. “Yah,” he says. “You’re making a face.”

Changmin puffs his cheeks out exaggeratedly. “I’m you drinking,” he says, automatically, and then freezes.

The good humor goes leaching out of the room so quickly it leaves Changmin dazed. 

“I mean--” he says. “Shit--”

“It’s fine, Changminnie,” Yunho-hyung says, putting a hand on Changmin’s. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” Changmin lies. “I’m not crying. You’re crying.” He wants to shrug free of Yunho-hyung’s hand, but he doesn’t. Just sits there, as good as holding hands, totally not letting tears drip down his face like some sort of idiot. 

“I almost died,” Yunho-hyung agrees quietly. Then he breathes deep and lets out a long, deep breath. The air whistles through his lungs and his shoulders rise, then fall. The silence feels kinder, now. Less murderous. 

Changmin turns his attention back towards the bottles, wondering if they should put them away, or something. 

“I feel like a failure,” Yunho-hyung says quietly before he can do so. “Not just as like. TVXQ’s leader--”

“You’re not,” Changmin rushes to say.

“But as a person,” Yunho-hyung finishes quietly. “I’m not… who I was supposed to be,” he adds.

Changmin’s mouth rounds into a small ‘o.’ “Yunho-hyung--”

“I’m not mad,” Yunho-hyung says quickly, letting go of Changmin’s hand finally and turning to look at him with wide, pleading eyes. “I love your father. Please don’t tell him I said that--”

Changmin’s mouth opens then closes. “What?”

“But I. I’m a Jung,” Yunho-hyung says. “I’m not supposed to be…” He pauses, frowning. “Weak.” 

Changmin stares at him, at a loss for words. “I,” he says. “My father?”

“He’s awesome,” says Yunho-hyung, gaze gone back to the orange juice. “An inspiration. He. He’s always been so nice. And I’m not saying-- I mean I’m not against him, it, me, or anything, but I’m not-- That’s not me--” He breaks off, swallows, then licks his lips. And then he makes a traumatized, involuntarily little noise, and shudders almost despite himself. 

Just from swallowing. 

Just from licking his lips. 

Changmin hates Ko first-name retracted so much he can’t _stand it_. “Yunho-hyung,” he ways quietly. “You’re not a failure because someone almost killing you has made you afraid of orange juice.”

Yunho-hyung’s mouth slams shut and heat floods his cheeks, like he knows that Changmin isn’t mentioning any of the other stuff. 

Changmin doesn’t care. It’s late, Yunho-hyung nearly died, and if Changmin wants to be kind, he very well will be kind.

Yunho-hyung deserves kindness. 

Yunho-hyung deserves to smile, laugh with friends, have anything at all in the world, if he wants. Who is anyone to tell him otherwise? Who is anyone to suggest he has no struggles, just because they happen to be more than a little famous?

Not for the first time, Changmin wishes he had the guts to ask Yunho-hyung to press charges.

But that ship has sailed. 

Changmin reaches for the opened orange juice and closes his hand around it. He doesn’t really want to drink it either. “Would it help if I--if we--” He quickly adds, trying not to stumble too obviously. He ducks hair over his ears to hide their flush. “Drank everything of yours first,” Changmin finishes, not looking at Yunho-hyung. He doesn’t look at anything other than the orange juice. 

“Like a taste tester,” says Yunho-hyung quietly. “Like I’m a kid.”

“Like you’re a king,” Changmin corrects, voice equally soft. “Kings did that all the time, Yunho-hyung. A cup-bearer.” When he finally meets Yunho-hyung’s gaze, the other man is staring at him with pink still staining his cheeks, and honest to God stars in his eyes. Changmin’s heart goes haywire. “It’s a thing,” he manages. “Look it up.”

Yunho-hyung just stares at him. “It’s alright, Changmin,” he says. “I trust you.”

Those three words force all the air out of Changmin’s lungs, and he just stares, waiting to die of oxygen deprivation. 

Yunho-hyung looks down at the bottle of juice Changmin’s still holding, takes it, and then, with only a mild pause, brings it to his lips and takes a slow, careful swallow. 

Changmin watches without moving, heart still going fast enough to power a car. 

After a second, Yunho-hyung pulls back, making a face. “Has it always tasted that bad?” he starts.

Changmin needs to leave the room before he does something incredibly stupid, like kiss him. “You’ve got, uh,” he says, gesturing pointlessly at his own face.

Yunho-hyung reaches up to wipe at chin, hands only shuddering slightly. He sets the bottle down on the ground, farther away this time. It shakes like it’s going to tip over, then settles.

Changmin and Yunho-hyung do as well.

“Right,” says Yunho-hyung. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Changmin says, at the same time Jaejoong-hyung comes out of their bedroom to stand blinking at them in the doorway to the living room. 

“What are you two doing?” he says, clearly not at all awake enough to see. 

Changmin exchanges an immediate look with Yunho-hyung, who’s very suddenly gone pale. “Look, Changdol, I--” he tries to say, but he doesn’t have to.

“Watching porn!” Changmin shouts back at Jaejoong-hyung. “‘Big alpha knot breeds omega twink!’ Go back to sleep!”

For a moment, there is only stunned, startled silence, as Jaejoong-hyung does his best to rally enough brain cells to be able to parse what it is Changmin’s said, let alone picture it.

Then he turns around, both hands over his ears. “Gross, Changmin-ah!” he calls. “Please never share--”

“I’ll put the file on your laptop, tomorrow, Hyung!” Changmin shouts back, to get him to shut the door with a slam. “No viruses! I’m very discreet!”  

“Fuck you!” Jaejoong-hyung hurls from behind the closed door, and then someone pounds angrily on the wall to get them all to shut up.

Changmin sits back on his haunches, pleased. “You were saying?”

Yunho-hyung is staring at him in amused silence, a smile curling the edges of his mouth and pushing indentations into both cheeks. “Changminnie,” he begins.

Changmin points at him. “Shut up,” he says, ears on fire. 

Yunho-hyung mimes zipping his lips. 

“I’ll leave,” Changmin continues. “See if I’ll be your cupbearer after this.”

Yunho-hyung laughs at him, head thrown back to show the entire stretch of his throat, and loud enough to earn them more wall pounding.

“You both are _disgusting_!” shrieks Jaejoong-hyung.

“I love you too!” Changmin hollers back, and then very quickly sobers when Manager-hyung’s voice comes, quieter than Jaejoong-hyung but no less serious.

“Changmin-ah!”

Changmin ducks his head, whispering so quietly there’s no way the man can hear. “Sorry.” When he’s done apologizing, he finds Yunho-hyung still smiling at him, a softness about him now. Changmin has to tighten both hands into sharp fists to keep from thinking more about that. “Do you, ah--” he starts to ask, miming drinking with one such fist. 

Yunho-hyung tilts his head to the side. “Do I need you to punch someone for me, Changdol-ah?” he asks dryly.

Changmin really thinks he was justified in reaching around to thud his fist into the man’s shoulder. 

“Oof,” says Yunho-hyung. “You’re a really bad cup-bearer. Aren’t you supposed to be protecting me from threats?”

Changmin snorts at him, going to stand. His knees creak, which really is unfair, given his age. But then, that’s the idol life. 

“Stay,” says Yunho-hyung suddenly. “If you want,” he adds, embarrassed.

Changmin stays, knees aching, and watches as Yunho-hyung lifts each bottle of juice with careful, shaking hands, and throws each of them back in quick succession. 

Then he stands guard outside the bathroom, pausing only to run tap water into a glass off the drying rack, and waits with his feet scuffing in nervous circles on the flooring.

He takes a pointed careful sip before handing it to Yunho-hyung, and doesn’t pay any attention to how the older boy waits for him to swallow before taking his own drink.

\--

tbc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Share this fic: [Tumblr](https://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/187729775405/abo) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1173197804417757184).


	5. tremble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did this even happen? Who do I blame? This chapter was betaed by Hexmen and reviewed/consulted on by Kinah, Scar, Pam, and Rin for pre-split accuracy b/c this author has no idea what she’s doing half the time when characterizing JYJ. This chapter also features Changmin/OC, who just so happens to be a woman. Things happen. Our baby isn’t a baby anymore by the end of them. 

#### 05. Tremble

* * *

It starts like most things do, with the rest of Changmin’s idiot hyungs making a fuss out of nothing. It starts mid-June, when Kyuhyun is just well enough that the company starts discussing when he’ll be released from the hospital. 

(It’s kind of ridiculous; Kyuhyun nearly died, and Changmin hasn’t been able to have a conversation with Kibum about it without one of them ending up in tears. But it has been almost three months, and Changmin understands his friend’s desire to at least be bed-ridden and recovering from near-death in the comfort of his own home.)

It starts when SM finally decides they’re ready to debut their new girl group--nine girls, whittled down through the ranks of trainees to form what Changmin thinks the public is still calling ‘Super Girls,’ and meant to stand counter to Super _Junior_. It makes Changmin think about CHJS--SM’s girl TVXQ--but he doesn’t think that much of it.

No, it’s his idiot _hyungs_ who are wrapped up in it, even though it’s not like the girls are new. This is what it’s like when most of your group predates 2003. Changmin gets it--everyone at SM is fucking pretty--but Changmin doesn’t really _care_ , even though he admits the new staff they’ve seen in between meetings and dance practices are all very pretty this time around too. It must be a girl group thing. 

So they’re at SM and Jaejoong-hyung is collapsed on a beat up couch in one of the piano rooms and Junsu-hyung is practically melted into the top of the piano, while Yoochun-hyung plunks away idly at the keys, when one of the new, pretty coordi-noonas comes wandering by herding her soon-to-debut girl group.

Their door is open since Yunho-hyung’s off doing leader things in the bathroom with Manager-hyung, who’s still fucking hovering even though it’s been literal months since the glue incident. 

Changmin’s on the couch also, tucked into the corner as far away from Jaejoong-hyung as possible because his chest is still smarting from where the older boy got him across the nipple a few minutes earlier during one of their staple playfights. He’s fooling around on his phone, clicking between that mobile game Yunho-hyung’s gotten them all hooked on and a chat with Kibum and Kyuhyun, who’s somehow managed to bribe his way into accessing his phone, and mostly sends them all truly depressing poems, song lyrics, and unfortunately bad puns. 

He’s allowed.

He nearly died. 

Changmin… is never going to be able to unhear some of the shit Kyuhyun’s said about bread, and Changmin fucking loves bread. 

Junsu-hyung makes an approving noise in the back of his throat but doesn’t move from his place sprawled on the piano. 

Yoochun-hyung hits a sour note and then ducks his head in embarrassment when one of the coordi-noonas bows and smiles politely. 

The new girl group, like clockwork, all greet them with the most recent iteration of a name that Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim is trying out for them.

Changmin has war flashbacks to when they were Oh Jang Yuk Bu. 

They all bow back and the flock of nervous girls go on their way. Changmin cranes his head after them to watch, picking out the ones he knows vaguely by name because they’d been around when he was a trainee, and then noting the newer ones, like the one who rumor has it is Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim’s niece. 

The rest of his bandmates follow suit, going quiet as the group vanishes, and then waiting the obligatory five seconds to be sure they’re not going to embarrass themselves horribly.

Then the room dissolves into teasing. 

“Changmin-ah,” says Jaejoong-hyung, still sprawled across the couch and smirking. “You stare like a pervert. Tell us what they were all wearing.”

Changmin glowers at the older boy, unimpressed, and makes like he’s going to smack him.

Jaejoong-hyung cackles and flinches back, shouting, “We’re not in _public_ , Changmin-ssi, _uncle_!” at the top of his lungs.

Changmin keeps glaring at him, feeling heat settle across the back of his neck involuntarily. 

“Is this all we are to each other?” continues to lament Jaejoong-hyung. “Is this soulfighter?” He sticks one hand in the air and makes a fist, eyes falling shut and hand falling down to thud onto his chest making his breath gust out. 

Changmin heaves a long sigh at him, and curls his toes into the couch. 

As time has gone on and TVXQ has broken up into couples beyond Yunjae, Jaejoong-hyung’s really blossomed, much more pleased by the prospect of cuddling up with Yoochun-hyung or slapping Changmin in the dick, it seems, than he is by their more rabid fans’ continued insistence that he and Yunho-hyung are some sort of secret, soul-bonded, alpha-omega pair of _lovers_ , or whatever. Changmin doesn’t mind--he gets to hit Jaejoong-hyung on camera--but after several hours of vocal practice and variety prep, even he gets annoyed by the lack of diversity in each dynamic. 

It makes him twitchy. When Yunho-hyung comes back, he thinks he might take the next bathroom break to go scream into a toilet or something. 

“Jaejoong-hyung,” he whines.

Jaejoong-hyung just grins at him, expression pleased. 

“I like Jaeeun-noona,” Junsu-hyung says suddenly, before Changmin and Jaejoong-hyung can get more at each other’s throats. “The coordi,” Junsu-hyung clarifies, when they both look at him. He peels his face off of the piano when Yoochun-hyung hits a particularly dissonant note combination. “She’s really pretty,” says Junsu-hyung.

Changmin thinks of the coordi in question, and nods.

This time Jaejoong-hyung doesn’t tease him, because he’s too busy agreeing. Then he stops nodding, and glances around the room. “What do you think she is?” he asks. 

This is his new thing: ‘What do you think she is?’, meaning, ‘What designation is she?’ 

Well. Changmin ought to be fair. It’s everyone in their little group’s new thing, minus Yunho-hyung because he’s too busy leading, and Changmin because he’s too busy picturing his mother eviscerating him. ‘What designation is she?’, or he, or anyone even remotely pretty at the company or at the broadcast recording venue or at the music video set in Japan. It’s the safest way to even talk about liking people, since they’re so famous their managers would rather gnaw off an arm than even _think_ about any of them dating someone. ‘What do you think she is?’ meaning, ‘could we even _be_ together?’, and Changmin gets it. 

Even Heechul-hyung does it, although maybe Changmin shouldn’t be surprised, given the number of women Heechul-hyung’s dated, let alone been with. There’s for sure something going on with Hankyung-hyung, but it’s Changmin’s not even going to think about _that_.

“A beta,” says Yoochun-hyung promptly, fingering over a few more notes--a minor seventh now--before setting both hands on top of the piano and hunching over them. “Or an omega.”

“So... perfect for you,” Jaejoong-hyung says dryly, then laughs when Yoochun-hyung swipes at him playfully.

“I think she’s an omega,” interjects Junsu-hyung, shifting around on his seat so that he’s facing Changmin and Jaejoong-hyung instead of the piano, expression serious. “She’s just so pretty.”

Jaejoong-hyung snorts. “And all omegas are pretty,” he says.

Yoochun-hyung opens his mouth to say something that Changmin swears might be about Yunho-hyung, and so Changmin clears his throat aggressively to stave it off. No one’s said anything to his face since Yunho-hyung cleared the hospital and they got so busy with their end of year promotions that it didn’t matter, but that hasn’t stopped Jaejoong-hyung from being an asshole because of rut, or Yoochun-hyung from teasing Yunho-hyung mercilessly for his desire to have a truckload of children and the long, feathery hair the company gave him and Changmin the past year. Yunho-hyung nearly ripped Jaejoong-hyung’s head off and just sort of laughs it off and play-wrestles with Yoochun-hyung, but Changmin remembers that night in October. He remembers Yunho-hyung’s fear and self-loathing and everything he couldn’t bring himself to say.

Clearing his throat to keep his bandmates from being even more dickish than usual is the least he can do.

“True,” says Jaejoong-hyung, looking between Yoochun-hyung and Changmin knowingly, before turning his full attention back to Junsu-hyung. “Why an omega?”

Junsu-hyung shrugs. “Her ears,” he says.

Changmin twists from his place on the couch to lift a brow at him.

Junsu-hyung meets his gaze full on, before darting forward to try to overbalance him off of the couch.

Changmin puts his feet down and resettles, not about to be so easily got. “And omega people have particularly noticeable ears?” he says dryly.

Junsu-hyung mimes flapping with both hands on either side of his head. “Well clearly not all of them,” he says, with a taunting little smirk that Changmin wishes he could punch a little. “Isn’t that right, alpha Shim?”

Changmin wishes he and Junsu-hyung were soulfighter. 

“Her ears are pretty,” Junsu-hyung continues, unbothered. “Ergo… omega.”

“Ergo…” Yoochun-hyung mocks. “You’re an idiot.”

Junsu-hyung reaches across the piano and shoves him. 

“Does this mean you think Yunho-hyung has pretty ears?” asks Jaejoong-hyung suddenly, expression unreadable.

Yoochun-hyung is nodding immediately, and Changmin can’t tell if that means he agrees with the question, or he thinks Yunho-hyung has pretty ears. More worryingly, Changmin can’t tell which bothers him _more_.

“Can’t you tell what Jaeeun-noona is, Hyung?” he asks a little desperately. “You have the highest Jacobson’s score.” 

Jaejoong-hyung looks at him briefly, before allowing the subject change with a sigh. “Well, I don’t go out of my way to be rude,” he explains.

That gets him a snort from Junsu-hyung. “Yeah, right, Jaejoong-hyung.” 

“Not with strangers,” Jaejoong-hyung clarifies. “You all didn’t count. You were about to be basically my _brothers_.”

Changmin’s stomach goes all squirmy like it always does when he thinks about how they’re all _family_ now. How he went from that kid with all the baby sisters to that kid with four big brothers. 

“She’s clearly a beta,” Yoochun-hyung says again, looking particularly certain and smug about it. 

Jaejoong-hyung shrugs his shoulders, clearly considering, and he gets this look in his eye that says he wants to go back to the ear thing, whether to tease Junsu-hyung or get everyone going so he can tussle with Yunho-hyung once their leader gets back.

Changmin panics.

“Jaeeun-noona is an alpha,” he says, because suddenly he knows she is one, and the room goes silent.

And then the room goes _loud_. 

Changmin winces and rears back, suddenly on the receiving end of a lot of congratulations and rambunctious shouting. Someone’s clapping him on the back, someone’s got him by the knee, someone’s wailing on about how he’s not their baby anymore, and Changmin realizes what they’re talking about. What they think he did to _know_.

“No--I--I mean it’s kind of obvious? If you smell her--”

That only seems to set them off even more, Jaejoong-hyung grabbing Junsu-hyung and make-believe sobbing, now, going on about how they grow up so fast and how their little fawn isn’t so little or a fawn anymore. 

“ _I mean when I met her_ \--”

“You dog, Changdol, putting out on the first date!”

“Are you surprised? You saw what he was wearing at Gimpo yesterday--” 

Changmin finally gets free of Yoochun-hyung’s hold on him and sputters at Jaejoong-hyung and Junsu-hyung, face feeling like it’s on fire. “ _That’s not what I mean_ \--”

“I’m just curious how that worked,” continues Jaejoong-hyung, now just sort of letting Junsu-hyung use him as a pillow. “You both being alphas, and all.”

Changmin continues to sputter, his brain choosing this exact moment to be supremely unhelpful and start to go into detail about all the things two alphas could do, let alone if one was a woman. “Hyung,” is all he manages.

Jaejoong-hyung grins back at him, before abruptly sobering. “Oh no.”

Changmin has a sinking feeling. “Jaejoong-hyung--”

“Oh _no_ ,” says Jaejoong-hyung anyway. “I did it again--”

“Hyung--”

“I did it _again_ ,” profanes Jaejoong-hyung, truly being unnecessarily dramatic this. “Yoochun-ah!” He reaches across Changmin and grips Yoochun-hyung by both eager hands. 

“Jaejoong-hyung!” replies Yoochun-hyung, the asshole.

“Changminnie is a _virgin_!”

Changmin wants the entire world to swallow him whole. “I am _not_!” he shrieks, lying blatantly and not even trying to sound convincing. His voice is a squeak of embarrassed air and his heart is going so fast it’s got to be a health hazard and his ears feel like they’re burning they’re so hot. “I am not, _Jaejoong-hyung_!”

“Don’t worry,” Jaejoong-hyung says, still holding Yoochun-hyung’s hands and effectively boxing Changmin in. “I won’t make the same mistakes as before.”

Changmin goes a little cross eyed trying to figure out what the _fuck_ the older boy is going on about.

“The kissing thing,” says Jaejoong-hyung. “I love you, but I don’t _love you_ \--”

Changmin connects the dots and goes even more red and faint. “Gross, Hyung!” he shouts, trying to wash his brain of the thought. “Gross! Gross! Gross--”

“I’m not going to deflower you,” Jaejoong-hyung keeps saying, eyes practically sparkling at Changmin’s pain. He finally lets go of Yoochun-hyung’s hands and comes to rest on his knees at Changmin’s side. “But I am going to help someone else deflower you.”

Which is exactly when Yunho-hyung gets back to their practice room, eyes fixed on his phone, being trailed by a manager hyung.

The noise that Changmin makes is not at all becoming and everyone notices and laughs at him for it.

“Shut up,” he tells them all, flushing and trying to compose himself. “Shut up--shut up--”

“What?” Yunho-hyung lifts his head from the phone, clearly focused on his mobile game, and looks between the four of them curiously. “What are you all talking about?”

“Operation Deflower Bambi--” Yoochun-hyung tries to say. 

“Nothing!” shouts Changmin at the same time, so loudly that Yunho-hyung actually takes a step back. 

After a pause, he reaches up to wipe imaginary spit from his eyes. “Um, okay,” he says, still looking confusedly between them all. “Changmin--”

“Sorry, Yunho-hyung,” says Changmin, fighting the urge to wring his hands, or rush off to get a towel so he can wipe the saliva off his face, or something.

Jaejoong-hyung and Yoochun-hyung are totally having a conversation with their eyes about their plan, but Junsu-hyung is kind enough to stand and make his way to the piano. 

“What took you so long, Hyung?” he asks, changing the subject like a gift.

Changmin loves him most. He’ll gladly elevate Junsu-hyung to favorite hyung the next time someone asks him on a variety show. 

“We were talking about how Changminnie has a crush on Jaeeun-noona,” Junsu-hyung adds.

Changmin takes it all back. Junsu-hyung is his _least_ favorite hyung even after fucking Discipline Manager-hyung. 

“Jaeeun-noona?” says Yunho-hyung, finally shutting his phone and stuffing it back into his pocket. “I was talking to Heechul-hyung in the hallway,” he explains, answering Junsu-hyung’s initial question. “He’s going to visit Kyuhyun in the hospital after practice.”

Junsu-hyung sobers a little as he always does when faced with his almost loss of a best friend, before brightening. “What do you think of Jaeeun-noona, Yunho-hyung?”

Changmin’s throat tries to close up some more and a little noise of pain escapes, causing Yoochun-hyung and Jaejoong-hyung to descend into giggles. 

Yunho-hyung doesn’t seem too bothered by all their nonsense. “Isn’t she an alpha?” he says, with an honest raised inflection at the end of his sentence. “Oh--sorry, Changminnie. I’m sure she’s lovely.” He actually looks apologetic, lashes casting actual shadows on his cheeks in his earnestness, and Changmin hadn’t thought that actually happened in real life without the aid of special effects. 

It’s unfair. 

Even in this--the mortifying discussion of Changmin’s not-crush on alpha Jaeeun-noona--Yunho-hyung is perfect. 

Yoochun-hyung and Jaejoong-hyung are practically dying of silent glee around them, and Changmin just sinks back against the couch cushions in despair. 

“Why do you think she’s an alpha, Yunho-hyung?” asks Junsu-hyung, ever the giver. 

Changmin shoots him a beseeching look and just gets a wink in response. 

“Er,” says Yunho-hyung, glancing around quickly before judging he’s fine to take the empty seat in front of the piano. “Is it not obvious to you?” he looks between Junsu-hyung and Yoochun-hyung, and then finally somewhat desperately at Jaejoong-hyung. “Jaejoong?”

Jaejoong-hyung finally stops eye-fucking Yoochun-hyung and gives Yunho-hyung his attention, gaze distracted. “Hmm, Yunho-yah?”

“Could you not tell Jaeeun-noona was an alpha?”

Jaejoong-hyung shrugs. “I guess I wasn’t that interested,” he says.

“So you were lying when you said she was pretty,” taunts Yoochun-hyung, earning a shove from Jaejoong-hyung.

“Maybe it’s because she’s an alpha,” attempts to diffuse Junsu-hyung, fluttering fingers over the keys like he’s going to accompany their conversation. 

Yunho-hyung’s expression shutters a little and Changmin starts demoting Junsu-hyung to lower than least favorite hyung--to actively _disliked_ hyung. 

“Maybe,” their leader says, shrugging to hide his anxiety behind bluster. “Anyway, she’s very pretty, Changminnie.”

Changmin feels heat flood both cheeks but he stands his ground to the best of his ability. “Thank you, Yunho-hyung,” he stutters out.

Yunho-hyung continues to look at him with an odd expression on his face, before nodding and turning to look at their manager-hyung, who Changmin notices has just been standing quietly by their thankfully finally closed door on his own phone.

As if sensing his gaze, the man looks up. “You are not allowed to date Jaeeun-ssi, Changmin,” he says, like he and Yunho-hyung rehearsed it.

“But what about having _sex_ with Jaeeun-ssi,” mutters Jaejoong-hyung under his breath and Changmin takes great joy in one-touching him right off the couch. 

“Thank you, Hyung,” Changmin tells their manager. “Junsu-hyung was _joking_. I do not have a crush on Jaeeun-noona.”

For some reason, Yunho-hyung’s mouth turns down at the corners, but instead of focusing on that mystery, Changmin busies himself with the sheet music they were rehearsing before Yunho-hyung vanished. They’re flying to Okinawa tomorrow for a MV shoot and Japanese schedules, and they’ve been doing last minute prep with the single. Clearly, that’s much more important.

\--

The first problem is that Yoochun-hyung will _not_ shut up about Operation Deflower Bambi. Changmin’s destroyed two full dressing room tables covered with makeup and more than a few manager’s cellphones in his quest to get Yoochun-hyung to shut up about it and especially _not call it Operation Deflower Bambi_ , but to no avail. Every time they’re alone or have spare time or even when they’re just trapped in a car driving in between schedules, Yoochun-hyung’s plotting with Jaejoong-hyung and Junsu-hyung. Yunho-hyung remains oblivious, but there’s only so many times Changmin can knock things off tables like a cat before their staff start to get annoyed. 

It doesn’t help that SNSD has finally debuted, and Jaeeun-noona is thus much more present in all of their lives. Whenever they see her Junsu-hyung and Jaejoong-hyung are relentless in their actions, shoving Changmin at the poor woman with all the subtlety of a bear on roller-skates. 

It doesn’t help that they’re _never_ in Korea for most of July either. Opportunities to brainstorm for Operation Deflower Bambi are few and far between, and severely limited by _access_ to Jaeeun-noona, so Yoochun-hyung and Jaejoong-hyung feel somehow _justified_ in bowling Changmin towards her like they can somehow mow down all ten pins and come out of the game with their maknae no longer pure as the driven snow… or… whatever. Not a virgin. 

It doesn’t help that Changmin… might have a crush on Jaeeun-noona?

That’s the second problem. 

Changmin has a crush.

He’s not sure how it even started, but somewhere around the time when Kyuhyun got discharged from the hospital, Changmin came to the conclusion that his heart _pounds_ whenever he thinks about her. Because she really is very pretty, and funny, and Changmin’s heart is an _idiot_ , because she might at least be a girl, but she’s also not an omega. (Or Yunho-hyung.) Or at all in Changmin’s league, no matter how hard Junsu-hyung and Yoochun-hyung want her to be.

Which means the fact that someone’s made it so that she’s been put on TVXQ’s styling team for the night of the Mnet 20’s Choice Awards in Seoul is just a waste of time. 

And pulled strings. 

And called in favors. And whatever sacrifice Jaejoong-hyung had to make to make it so. 

So of course, Changmin falls for it when his asshole bandmates lock him in their waiting room with the woman. 

He’s not expecting it.

Jaeeun-noona is out of his league.

Jaeeun-noona is… unbuttoning her blouse? 

Changmin panics, heart rate going through the roof, and lifts both hands in front of him like he can somehow magic the situation--and the blouse--closed. Away. No more. Changmin’s losing his ability to think of _words_. 

“What are you doing?” he shouts, breathing starting to match his pounding heart. 

Jaeeun-noona’s fingers still on her buttons and she levels Changmin a raised brow. “Would you rather I leave it on?” she says.

Her voice is just as sensual as Changmin remembered, and the gossip that she’s just as Korean-American as Jessica leaps to the forefront of Changmin’s mind. “What?” he yelps.

“Your bandmates aren’t very subtle,” Jaeeun-noona explains pleasantly. “You’re all supposed to be on stage soon. How long do they anticipate this taking?”

Changmin squeaks, feeling faint, and stands grappling with what feels like a heart attack for three awful seconds. “I,” he gets out. “I can’t--breathe--”

“Oh my God, Changmin. I’m kidding. Breathe--” Jaeeun-noona says, abandoning all pretense and coming to stand in front of Changmin looking concerned.

“You’re--mean--” Changmin gets out as she helps lower him to the ground and prompts him to put his head between his knees. “Teasing--me.” 

“Sorry.” Jaeeun-noona sounds it. She reaches out almost hesitantly, and Changmin can see her fumble her hand back from his angle, neck craned uncomfortably and hair going messily around his face. 

He doesn’t feel quite so breathless now, and so he sits up, hair flopping back down everywhere. Changmin scowls, still flushing, as he tries to tame it even remotely. “I’m sorry,” he says, gathering huge hunks of hair into a make-shift ponytail at the base of his neck. Someone’s going to murder him when they have to take another straightener to it before their performance. He loops the hair tie he’s taken to wearing around his wrist when they’re at home or not in public up and onto the gathered hair, twisting it twice and calling it as good as done. “That was embarrassing,” he says.

Jaeeun-noona just looks at him. “Don’t apologize for panicking,” she says. “I shouldn’t have teased you.” 

And Changmin’s ears are bright red all over again. “It’s fine,’ he says, somehow managing to keep her gaze. “I’m fine.” 

Jaeeun-noona stares at Changmin some more, expression unreadable. “I mean it,” she says. “That was mean of me. You’d think I’d never had a crush on someone before.” She smiles, clearly meaning that as a peace offering, but Changmin just wants to die. 

“Oh God,” he says. “Noona--”

Jaeeun-noona makes a face, but clearly getting called Noona is different from being called Unnie. “That’s right! You’re younger than me.”

“I’m twenty,” blurts Changmin, unable to help himself. “Er, well, nineteen, I guess, but--”

Jaeeun-noona cuts him off with a blinding smile. “I’m 1983,” she says. “You’re a kid.”

Changmin scowls at her. “Heechul-hyung is 1983,” he says. “He doesn’t think I’m a kid.”

Jaeeun-noona’s eyes glitter. “I guarantee he does,” she says. “Especially if the only time you spoke to him was after your bandmates shoved you at him.”

Changmin winces, coloring slightly, and ducks his head. “Sorry, Noona,” he whispers. “Jaejoong-hyung is like a dog with a bone.”

There’s a small pause. Jaeeun-noona meets Changmin’s eyes, then says very seriously, “Now that’s an unfortunate simile choice.” 

Changmin might be in love. 

Jaeeun-noona blushes. “Sorry,” she says again, clearly having been on the receiving end of more than a few culture talks. “I just mean because in English, bone is, um…”

“Sex,” Changmin finishes bravely, staring at her full on. She really is remarkably pretty. Especially since she’s just staff. She has full lips, double eyelids, and a mole to the right of her bottom lip. It kind of reminds Changmin of Yunho-hyung--

That’s… not a safe train of thought. 

Jaeeun-noona looks at Changmin with another raised eyebrow. “Yes, sex,” she says. “So not a kid, then.”

Changmin’s not sure how, but somehow he holds it together. He lets himself gloat, posture changing into something definitely modeled after Yunho-hyung on stage--shit, still not a safe train of thought, Changmin, what the fuck--, before abruptly sobering. “But not in your league,” he says quickly, hating how he’s committed to meeting her eyes. “I really am sorry about Jaejoong-hyung,” he adds. “I’ll tell him to stop--”

“I may go to Paris with you next month,” Jaeeun-noona says, interrupting Changmin before he can make it worse.

She’s still crouched on the ground next to Changmin with her legs tucked under herself, and her eyes are honest and kind.

Changmin manages not to squeak. “Really?” he manages.

Jaeeun-noona smiles, then nods. “Yes,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to go to Paris, and I’ve never been.”

Changmin doesn’t know what to say. “Me too.”

Jaeeun-noona’s smile goes even softer. Then she looks up, over Changmin’s head at the door, where the sounds of Yunho-hyung and the rest of their group can be heard returning. Yunho-hyung is saying, “I don’t understand how you lost Junsu in Suju’s waiting room?” with the kind of honest confusion that Changmin can’t decide whether he wants to shake out of him or hoard with the power of a thousand dragons. “He looks nothing like Siwon. What are you even talking about, Yoochun-ah? Do you need to get your eyes checked?”  

Changmin stifles sudden giggles behind both hands, straightening and trying to stand.

Jaeeun-noona goes with him, and Changmin notices that they’re a lot closer in height than he was expecting. He and Yunho-hyung have begun to tower over their bandmates and staff alike, and that’s all the more apparent whenever they’re around the girl trainees or SNSD. But Jaeeun-noona’s eyes hit him right at the throat, and that makes Changmin’s palms sweat. 

“Changmin-ah,” Jaeeun-noona says, once they’ve both gotten to their feet and are a safe distance apart. “Don’t be a stranger, next time.”

Changmin doesn’t know what to do with that _at all_. “I--”

And then Jaeeun-noona seems to go shy, which is more of a work out for Changmin’s lungs than all their choreography. She darts in so quickly Changmin almost misses it and presses the smallest of kisses right into the center of Changmin’s cheek.

The rest of the band and staff file into the room, too busy listening to Yoochun-hyung and Junsu-hyung recount how it was that Yoochun-hyung confused Junsu-hyung with Siwon-hyung to notice.

Changmin darts over to his usual stylist with heat high on both cheeks, and she takes tools to his hair so that he looks moderately presentable for the performance and when they go on stage to present an award. 

Jaeeun-noona fades into the background with practice, deferring to more senior staff. But when Changmin glances at her, she smiles.

So… Changmin might have a girlfriend, suddenly. 

\--

Changmin definitely has a girlfriend. Changmin has his first real kiss, (not counting Jaejoong-hyung; not counting how he wanted it to be Yunho-hyung--), peeling apples in the heart of Paris. Changmin graduates from finding Operation Deflower Bambi to be a pointless exercise, to spending more time on said pointless exercise. He loads his bags with weights and endures teasing from the members and his managers. He follows Jaejoong-hyung to the gym. He spends an embarrassing amount of time living up to his online reputation, trying to figure out this whole alpha/alpha thing without being specific enough to necessitate burning his laptop, let alone ruin his career. Because Jaeeun is very much an alpha, and Changmin… likes it. 

Not enough that he’s ready to say please and thank you when fucking Yoochun-hyung ambushes him and gives him fucking alpha condoms, however. 

He does it in Seoul, when Changmin’s got a room to himself whenever his manager is busy with the others, and he does it unnecessarily loudly, so already Changmin is stressed and upset. 

“Yo, Maknae,” says Yoochun-hyung, chewing gum messily and holding out a bag. “I got you something.” He makes a show of pulling the bag open, still chewing gum, and Changmin makes a distasteful face at him.

“Er--” He glances at Yoochun-hyung, then around the dorm at the rest of them who are thankfully all gathered in front of a television distracted, and then he realizes that what Yoochun-hyung is holding out for him--what he’s _gotten_ him--are extra large alpha condoms. A full box of them, which boasts fitting all sized knots, and then some. 

It takes Changmin two more seconds to decide he needs to commit fratricide. “Yoochun-hyung!” he whisper-shouts, grabbing the box so that he can stuff it into the pocket of his hoodie desperately. “What are you doing--”

“You’re welcome, Changminnie-yah,” Yoochun-hyung says, before padding off when called so that he can drape himself all over Jaejoong-hyung.

Jaejoong-hyung looks up and towards Changmin curiously, head tilted to one side, but Changmin manages what he hopes is a convincing smile and vanishes into his bedroom, miming using a phone.

“Jaeeun,” Junsu-hyung decides, before the door closes and shuts them out. “I can’t believe Changminnie’s the only one of us who’s getting some regularly.”

“Not that regularly,” Yoochun-hyung puts in, voice pleasant enough for the subject matter. “It’s only been like three months.” 

“You shouldn’t tease him,” Yunho-hyung mutters, tone petulant, and then the rest of it gets lost to the sudden silence of Changmin’s bedroom. 

Changmin lets out a long, loud breath before plodding over to his sorry excuse for a bed and flopping down across it dispassionately. He hadn’t planned on calling Jaeeun, but now he feels all out of sorts about their relationship, and part of him knows it’s because Yunho-hyung sounded sad. So he ends up on his back, staring at the ceiling for a few awful moments, and then he rolls over and stares into his pillow for a few moments, and then he falls asleep.

When he wakes up the room’s gone dark around him and his face certainly feels like it’s been pressed into his pillow for at least two hours. His eyes feel slicked shut with rheum and his mouth tastes something foul. Changmin squints, rubs at both eyes, and then sits up to turn on the lamp. He can hear the hum of the TV from outside the room again--the beauty of minimal schedules--and the near constant back and forth of his bandmates, but he focuses mostly on whatever he’s been sleeping on, pressing uncomfortably into his ribs.

Fished out, it’s the box of condoms.

The self-proclaimed ‘for extra-large knots’ box of condoms.

Yoochun-hyung is such a _dick_. With a small dick. The smallest dick in the fucking band. 

Changmin looks down at the malformed box and sighs. Then he peels back the opening and pulls out a strip of condoms. The labeling on the packets themselves reiterates the size thing, and Changmin takes that in, flips them over, and then, glancing nervously around his silent, empty room, shimmies around on the bed so that he can get his jeans open and unzipped. It’s not like he’s a stranger to his body, but like, it’s not like his knot is really that huge or anything. Or like--and maybe this is Changmin’s inexperience talking but whatever--at the _end_ of his dick. He still spends an embarrassing amount of time puzzling over his own anatomy. And then, well.

It’s easy to rip the thing open. Easy to put a finger in, a hand, to slide it as far up as his arm as possible with his head tilted to one side. 

And then.

Well.

“Hey, Changmin, we’re about to get dinner if you’re--” says Yunho-hyung, opening Changmin’s bedroom door without fucking knocking and barging right in. 

From his place on the bed with most of the ‘for extra-large knots’ condom shoved over top his head and catching on his ears, Changmin barely manages not to fall off the bed in embarrassed shock. 

“Um,” says Yunho-hyung.

“Hyung!” says Changmin.

“We’re… dinner,” says Yunho-hyung, one hand gesturing over his shoulder and pointing towards their living room. 

“Yunho-hyung!” says Changmin.

“Kay,” says Yunho-hyung, and retreats.

This time Changmin does fall off the bed in his haste to chase after Yunho-hyung, and the force of doing so is enough to force the condom off of his head, thankfully. It lands in a stretched, sad-looking pile on the floor in front of him, much like a depressing, deflated balloon. But it hasn’t ripped, though, so Changmin has to give it points for tenacity. And certainly it fits _all sizes_. 

Changmin lays his head on the floor next to the condom in despair. 

“Yunho-yah--” 

His bedroom door slams shut with a bang, but Changmin can hear Jaejoong-hyung. 

“--Is he asleep? Do you need me to wake him--”

Changmin’s head comes up, horror settling into his bones--

“No!” cries Yunho-hyung, who really is the nicest of all of Changmin’s hyungs. “No! He’s… uh… Not decent!”

There’s a pause.

“Oh,” says Jaejoong-hyung. “I guess he really did call Jaeeun-noona.”

“What?” says Yunho-hyung. “Oh, no, Jaejoong!”

There’s cackling and then the sound of moving footsteps as the two of them move out of the hallway and towards their kitchen and dining area. 

Changmin drops his head back onto the ground beside the condom and sighs. 

\--

Changmin learns several things the night he loses his virginity. 

Most importantly, that no matter of porn and time spent with his right hand could have prepared him for it. It’s a lot more awkward and embarrassing and wet than he had been expecting--lots of spit, and nerves, and sweat and hastily-aborted petting. There’d been all sorts of build-up and foreplay and working their way up to the full thing, so Changmin’s no stranger to the taste of Jaeeun. He’s no stranger to the way her arousal loops into his own and makes the roof of his mouth tingle. He’s no stranger to kissing her, to holding her by the hips and pressing up against her, rubbing a tongue behind her teeth and worrying the shocking truth of it out of her. 

(“I’m barely beta-level on my Jacobson’s. My brother used to tease me about it, since we’re both alphas, but I’m basically scent blind. It used to get me in all sorts of trouble when I’d go barking up the wrong tree--you’re not my first alpha--oh don’t stop--”

“I--you’re mine--my first alpha--is that a problem--”

“No, Changminnie, of course not--please--”) 

There are kisses and movie dates and hickeys that his bandmates tease him for, and through it all Changmin finally starts to feel less like a baby, less like a child. He feels confident enough to hold hands and to fight for undercover dates and to ask for more singing parts, more dancing parts. He fights Jaejoong-hyung over their Japanese sound, and harrases Yoochun-hyung for piano lessons. He has to learn piano before they’ll let him touch a guitar and he’s _bad_ at it, somehow too clumsy for two handed pieces and too eager to slice open the pads of his fingers on acoustic strings. 

His dancing is still not perfect, but it’s better than Jaejoong-hyung, better than Yoochun-hyung. 

Jaeeun knows what she’s doing in ways Changmin has no idea how to even think about but she’s never anything but sweet about it, kind and domineering and fully willing to take charge and go after what she wants. She’s funny and fun and what she wants is somehow Changmin. Bumbling, sweet, shy, big-eared Changmin, whose heart hasn’t managed to beat normally since the day he laid eyes on her, basically. A full one hundred days ago. 

He has no idea how it is that happened. 

He has no idea what he’s doing.

He has _no idea_. 

Jaeeun says, voice hushed, cheeks red, and eyes practically all pupil, “You know, Changmin, what they say about alpha women?”

And Changmin stares back at her, heart beating, skin pebbling, lungs practically hyperventilating. “That they’re more likely to have alpha children?”

Jaeeun laughs, head thrown back, and puts both hands on his shoulders, rubs her thumbs across his clavicles, bites her lip raw. “No,” she says. “That we need to _let_ you.”

Changmin can’t help but look, eyes drawn like moths to a flame down the curve of her body, past the breasts and the nipples and the moles dotting next to her bellybutton, to slide down the curl of her legs, thighs pressed together, feet bundled to one side. “Oh,” he says. Then, hushed, like a secret, like he still can’t quite believe it, “Will you?”

Jaeeun does. 

Changmin _likes it_.

So Changmin’s not a virgin, anymore. 

Operation Deflower Bambi is mission complete. 

\--

Then it’s December and almost the new year and all of them are talking about birthdays. TVXQ’s first, because somehow they’ve made it five full years, but then Jaejoong-hyung’s two in January, and then Yunho-hyung and Changmin’s in February. Yoochun-hyung and Junsu-hyung whine about how they’re all twenty-three and _ancient_ , but Changmin doesn’t care, because Changmin has a _girlfriend_. 

Changmin has a girlfriend who finds out he hasn’t done anything really special for his birthday since becoming famous because he never has time, and who smirks at him and mimes zipping her lips. One who reminds him of his baby sisters, but who hasn’t _met_ his baby sisters, because Changmin hasn’t told anyone in his family about her. 

He hasn’t told his mom or his dad or any of his home friends, because he can’t take Jaeeun home to meet them, and that isn’t going to change any time soon, given TVXQ’s trajectory.

Up, up, up, and more famous.

He spends New Years volunteering with his father, bundling himself up in the familiar scent of home and family, and almost manages to keep that to himself, before a volunteer recognizes him and puts photos online. 

He almost tells his dad about Jaeeun, in between vacuuming at the oil-slick sand. 

His father says, “So is anything new with you--not TVXQ-- _you_ \--” and Changmin opens his mouth to say yes, actually.

But then he doesn’t, partly because he’s not sure if he’s ready, and partly because the volunteer spots him and asks for a picture.

The moment passes. 

TVXQ’s early year break passes. 

The fans commend him for his charity, but Changmin just misses time spent with his dad, who did just as much of the raising as his mother, especially in the early years, when Jiyeon and Sooyeon were nursing. His dad would have understood. 

His parents would be nothing but supportive.

Changmin’s had a girlfriend for nearly two hundred days, and no one besides his band and his company knows. That’s weird. Changmin’s life is so fucking weird. 

“Do you think it’s weird?” Changmin asks Jaeeun after a fanmeeting, when Jaeeun is one of the few staff left hovering because Changmin and Jaejoong-hyung got into a car accident on their way to the event hall. 

Their managers leave the two of them alone a lot now, probably because Yunho-hyung told them off a few weeks ago when Yoochun-hyung started a new round of teasing. Still, there’s not really privacy until Jaejoong-hyung plays up some elbow pain and gets herded out of the dressing room so that they can go harass Woojin-hyung, the senior level manager-hyung. 

Changmin holds very still, not meeting Jaeeun’s eyes. “That I haven’t told my parents about you, I mean.”

Jaeeun doesn’t look up from where she’d been applying antiseptic to the scrape tucked up next to Changmin’s right ear, where he’d been nicked by some broken glass. “Not really?” she says. She caps the medicine, and Changmin lets his hair fall back down around his cheekbones. It’s shorter than it had been when they met, but still long enough that the fans call him cute, and Changmin’s starting to be annoyed by that. He’s got muscles and height and a _girlfriend_ , and still he’s the cute one. 

Although it’s now well known that he’s also got a venomous tongue.

“Yah,” Jaeeun says, poking Changmin once in the nose. “You’re not listening to me.”

“Sorry,” Changmin says, licking his lips nervously. “But you don’t think it’s weird?”

Jaeeun shrugs. “I mean, it’s not like you could introduce me to them.” 

Changmin nods slowly, because even though he’d thought it first, it still feels weird hearing it out loud. It feels a little like giving in. 

Jaeeun is staring down at her hands, but she very seriously lifts her head. “And I don’t blame you for that,” she says. “I could never be a celebrity’s wife.”

Changmin had been prepped to keep nodding, but he very quickly derails that action, sputtering. “Wife?” he manages, scrambling to his feet and forcing Jaeeun out of his personal space. “Who said anything about wives?”

Outside the room, he hears Jaejoong-hyung say loudly, “actually, my _knees_ hurt a little now, too, Woojin-hyung. I think you should look again. Let me just… walk a little bit to see if it goes away--no--still hurting--” 

Changmin’s grateful and touched and breathing hard. 

Jaeeun raises one eyebrow, frozen where she had backed up with her hands in the air. “I mean where did you see this going?” she says. “Either we get married or we break up.”

She’s not wrong, is the thing. But Changmin’s never heard it said out loud so straightforwardly--and from a woman to boot. He keeps sputtering, feeling like he should maybe sit down, and manages, “Don’t say that!”

Jaeeun blinks at him. “It’s the truth, though?” She tucks a stray bit of hair behind one ear. “Aren’t you always saying how you like how I never lie to you?”

Changmin tries to backtrack, finally giving in and sinking back down onto the dressing room couch. “I mean, yeah, but I--I just--I don’t even know if I _believe_ in soulmates--” 

Jaeeun takes a few steps closer to him. “Changmin, your parents--” she starts to say.

Changmin cuts her off. “That’s just different!” he near hisses. “That was just… luck! There were less people around for their generation!”

Jaeeun is staring at him blankly.

“There’s no way some higher power has matched up everyone on the planet, especially not whoever you happen to fall in love with, because if that’s the case, then me and Yunho-hyung--” He cuts off, hearing the words like he’s having an out-of-body experience, and shoves both hands over his mouth like he can force the words back in. _Fuck_. _Shit_. Changmin did _not_ say that. 

Jaeeun looks at him.

Jaeeun comes to sit next to him.

Jaeeun breathes in and out with him, once, twice, then three times. 

“What about Yunho?” she says.

Changmin holds both hands over his mouth and shakes his head, angry, involuntary tears gathering in the corner of his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. He wants to sink into the ground and disappear. 

Jaeeun is very quiet for a long moment. Then she leans into him, head coming to rest on his shoulder. The comforting scent of her perfume washes over him. It does a lot to calm Changmin; the soothing, familiarity of it making his muscles relax and start to remember other things, other tightenings, and tensings, and movements. 

Changmin gets in three clean breaths and manages to stop smothering himself with his own fingers. 

“Changmin,” Jaeeun says. “It’s okay.”

Changmin doesn’t know how he’s going to look at her. “I really do like you,” he says, all miserable. “Love you--” His words break like they hadn’t when he wished Yunho-hyung happy birthday nearly a year ago, and he hates himself even more. “My heart hasn’t stopped pounding for two hundred days.”

Jaeeun hugs him tighter. “That’s… flattering,” she says. “Although maybe you should see a doctor about that--” 

Changmin shoves free of her hug, blushing.

Jaeeun laughs. Jaeeun kisses him on the cheek. Jaeeun goes quiet. 

“We’re breaking up, aren’t we?” says Changmin.

She doesn’t respond.

“This is my first break up,” says Changmin.

She hugs him again, inhaling deeply, and then kisses him. It’s not a chaste, innocent, goodbye sort of kiss, which feels sort of par the course for the entirety of their relationship. 

Changmin comes out of it feeling sore and guilty and like his heart has gone through the meat grinder.

“Um,” says Jaejoong-hyung, standing in the doorway effectively blocking everyone else’s entry. “Are we interrupting something?”

“Just us breaking up,” says Jaeeun peppily, exchanging a shit-eating grin with Changmin.

Jaejoong-hyung sputters, clearly at a loss, and Changmin throws his head back and laughs.

Yunho-hyung corners him in the van on their way to Gimpo Airport for promotions in Japan. “Are you okay, Changdol?”

Changmin can’t help but feel warm, as always, because of the nickname. “I’m fine, Hyung,” he says. “I was either going to break up with her or marry her.” 

Yunho-hyung looks at him oddly, eyes flitting briefly to the row in front of them, where Jaejoong-hyung is fighting with Manager-hyung about putting his feet on the dashboard. “Right…” he says.

“I’m not ready to get married,” continues Changmin, trying not to think about the other thing. The soulmate thing. “And we’re all born alone, and we’ll die alone, so.” He shrugs

Yunho-hyung gapes at him. “Changdol-ah!” he says. “That’s a terrible way to think!”

Changmin shrugs again, a little embarrassed despite himself. 

Yunho-hyung gets a serious turn to his mouth. “Don’t worry, Changminnie,” he says. “You’ll find someone. I’m sure of it.”

Changmin’s stomach, not even a day off his break up with the girl he called his first love and spent two hundred days counting his heartbeats over--lost his virginity to--erupts into butterflies. “Uh, thanks, Hyung,” he says, looking away quickly. “Hey, Jaejoong-hyung. If I was going to pierce my ears for the comeback--”

Jaejoong-hyung turns around in his seat so quickly that it has to hurt, especially since it’s not been forty-eight hours since they were both being examined for whiplash. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, yes, yes--”

Yunho-hyung reaches out like he’s going to touch Changmin’s ears, and then seems to think better of it. “If you’re sure,” he says. “I thought you said you didn’t want to change the body your parents gave you.”

Changmin shrugs some more, blushing. “Yeah,” he says. “But I mean, I’m not the same person I was when I said that, so… And you all have your ears pierced.”

Yunho-hyung rubs over the studs in his own ears.

“Awesome,” Jaejoong-hyung says. “Tattoo next.”

“Yeah, no,” says Changmin, and fights the good fight the entire way to the airport. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /laughs nervously and runs away 
> 
> Share this fic: [Tumblr](https://zimriya.tumblr.com/post/188268167145/abo) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1182463715372863489).


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